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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25913656">The Red Maple</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/HayanSonyeo/pseuds/HayanSonyeo'>HayanSonyeo</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>EXO (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Brothers, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Fear, Love/Hate, Loyalty, Mafia AU, Mind Manipulation, Torture, inner turmoil</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 02:53:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>37,736</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25913656</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/HayanSonyeo/pseuds/HayanSonyeo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>All she knows about the man who had made her look like a fool for not recognizing one of Kris Wu's famous paintings is the tattoo on his arm. And that she is going to kill him as soon as she gets the chance.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Byun Baekhyun/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Decoy Heist</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was a typical summer day – the heat was merciless and unbearable, and though the sun would set soon, its rays seemed to be carrying millions of degrees of heat with them - degrees of heat which were all getting absorbed by the silly clothes Jong Aeri was wearing.<br/><br/></p><p>It didn't help the least that the clothes were black – her shawl which served like a makeshift camouflage mask, long-sleeved shirt and pants, and the jacket she had to wear in order for all of the weapons tucked into the waistband of her pants and her pockets to remain invisible. Although most of the clothes were made of leather, spending so much time exposed to the sun’s rays heat them up and made Aeri feel as if she was in a furnace. Everything smelled of sweat and unbearable heat that had gotten into the very depths of her body and seemed like it would linger forever, disabling her from ever feeling cold again. She couldn’t make her body remember how it feels to be shivering in the winter cold. There was nothing but the merciless heat all around her, slowly seeping into her skin and threatening to make her burn out.<br/><br/></p><p>Although she was probably exaggerating in her mind, nobody could blame her - sitting like a statue for the whole day left her no other entertainment but talking to her self. She was situated on the long, firm branches of an old oak tree, high in the air and hidden from the eyes which could compromise her mission, but which she knew would not be looking for her anyway. She had climbed the tree when the day had just begun, the sun beginning to rise on the horizon while she jumped over the wall as the sluggish guard slowly made his way to the watch house where his substitute was sleeping, oblivious to the fact that he was giving her the chance she had been waiting for.<br/><br/></p><p>She had been observing the property for quite a long time, considering how long it usually took to identify the patterns of the guards' duties and find a safety breach that she would use to her advance. Considering the fact that this was <em>Kris Wu</em>'s residence, though? She'd say that she had managed to do this in record time indeed. Even at the compound, she could hear the voices of trainees and other junior assassins whispering <em>impossible, she would not be able to do it, this was too much for her</em>. She snorted to herself. <em>Amateurs</em>.<br/><br/></p><p>She would be praised when she returned to the base for sure, but that wasn't what was driving her to do this craziness in the first place. <em>No</em>, she <em>definitely</em> wasn't playing a guinea pig for the newest method of boiling eggs in the sunlight by wrapping them in black fabric. She didn’t even want to be praised by her coworkers for this. Kyungsoo always praised her anyway, and she didn't need to give him a reason to make his usual speeches about her extraordinary abilities any longer than they were now. She almost cringed inwardly, remembering the 15-minute speech he delivered during her birthday a couple of months ago, stuttering and gasping for air every five seconds. She didn’t even remember any of his words - she just nodded along, not wanting to make things even worse for him. <em>Definitely not something she wanted to have to go through again</em>.<br/><br/></p><p>She sighed – the day had been a long one indeed, and since she couldn't carry anything (like a book, perhaps) with her in order not to compromise her mission, she'd spent it in boredom; she was so bored that the occasional passing by of the guard on duty seemed like the end of a long suffering, since it announced that fifteen minutes had passed by. It also made her feel just <em>a little bit </em>less crazy by reminding her of her mission. Her patience would be rewarded, and <em>soon</em>.<br/><br/></p><p>The guards were trained very well: they were punctual and serious, and for several weeks she couldn’t find a single thing that she could use in order to get past the wall without getting caught. If she disabled the alarm system, she would have only a minute before the guards came running and discovered her for sure, and no matter how much she observed them, she couldn’t find a pattern in their change routines. They exchanged places at a different time every night, so she couldn’t know when to start disabling the alarm because by the time she would be done with it, the other guard would already be arriving to his post by the door and she wouldn’t be able to cross the wall and get to the tree safely in time.<br/><br/></p><p>But after a couple of weeks, the perfect opportunity presented itself to her – it seemed like one of the guards had gotten a girlfriend which wanted to keep things super-secret between them, so she demanded for them to call each other at a certain time of night. A pattern finally started to emerge – he would receive a phone call somewhere around 2 AM, run into the watch house for the substitution as he answered and give Aeri some time to climb over the wall and get into the safety of the darkness as she climbed the tree unnoticed.<br/><br/></p><p>Last night, she started disabling the alarm system a little bit late (she blamed it on the girlfriend, who decided to call him at 1:58 AM, cutting off two precious minutes from her), so by the time she was done, the guard had already reached the watch house. She knew she didn’t have much time, and that it wouldn’t be easy to pull it off and remain unseen, but her hands were steady as she climbed the reinforced concrete wall and jumped over it swiftly.</p><p> </p><p>Her beating heart was loud in her ears, though, especially when she heard the footsteps of the approaching guard while she was still out in the open, about to be caught in the zone specifically meant for such situations, without any place to hide and too far away from the big oak tree that would bring her to safety.<br/><br/></p><p>But the night was dark, without any moonlight and the guard hadn’t seemed to have woken up completely yet, because he didn’t catch a glimpse of the hooded silhouette quickly making its way to the tree, her feet not making a sound, just like she had been taught such a long time ago.  She knew lady luck had been on her side last night. She also knew that tonight, she would <em>not </em>be able to count on it to help her again. But she would pull this off. This wasn’t her first mission - she knew how to keep a level head and do her job with her eyes closed. Now that she was in, this would be a piece of cake.</p><p> </p><p>So she sat on the branch, about to burst from the heat accumulated in her dark clothes and waiting for the sun to <em>finally</em> set so that she could carry out her mission and leave this forsaken place without making a ruckus. <em>Especially not like last time I went on a mission</em>, she thought to herself.</p><p> </p><p>An hour went by, and the heat slowly subsided, which she was thankful for. She did not turn to watch the sunset, though she imagined it to be a beautiful mixture of pink and purple and red and blue. She couldn’t let her guard down for a single moment, though, not after she’d spent so much time analyzing and preparing everything. She needed to get everything right – for the sake of the guards below her, too, because she did not want to have to kill them.<br/><br/></p><p>She would sneak into the house when the substitution took place – hopefully the girlfriend wouldn’t choose this night to change her super-secret pattern of calls with the young guard – and then she would find the safe, break into it and take whatever was inside. She would try to get out without being noticed, and even if she failed, she would put the guards to sleep and avoid any unnecessary confrontations. <em>Piece of cake</em>, she repeated to herself. If only she could bring herself to believe in it.<br/><br/></p><p>The thing was, the last time she thought up such a plan, her hands ended up so bloody that she still saw the image of it all behind her closed eyelids sometimes. She’d done fieldwork afterward, insisting she was fine, but never something this serious. Never something this <em>similar</em>. And after weeks of waiting around, not communicating with anyone and not having eaten anything or slept since last night, she knew her nerves were on edge. It would take only a minor disturbance to ruin the whole plan. It would take only a slight breeze of the wind to set this whole place on fire. And just like the last time, she knew she would do it, if push came to shove. She would kill the guards to protect her mission. She would do anything to protect her clan.<br/><br/></p><p>Even if it came to it, she hoped nobody would end up dead. Her previous mission ended with her firing a gun at a guard who’d sounded the alarm. She’d genuinely thought she’d killed him, and it was only weeks later when Soo found out he was actually alive after having several surgeries. She still checked on him sometimes. He was getting better, but it would take a long time to heal from getting shot straight into the chest. She shuddered, remembering how the blood splattered all over her face. How she’d scrubbed it a million times daily for at least a month, not being able to chase away the feeling of it. How she still couldn’t look at the mirror.</p><p> </p><p>Kyungsoo insisted that she was too soft for the job, and that she should hide between paperwork and never get out into the field again. Although she wasn’t punished - not officially, at least - nobody would say a word if she decided to change her position in the clan. <em>Because training for six years and finally managing to become an assassin didn</em><em>’t mean a single thing. </em>She sighed again. Life was so complicated sometimes.</p><p> </p><p>He was probably right, but she had no choice. She needed to pave a path for herself that would someday lead her perhaps even close enough to be able to meet the Oh heir, securing her position and the position of what she cherished the most in the whole world. <em>Her family</em>. And when she thought about it, she really, <em>honestly </em>did like her job. Not the <em>assassination </em>part, of course - only a sadist like commander Jongade would be capable of enjoying murdering others - but the part where her skills were constantly tested, when she was always provided with the sneakiest tasks and where she needed to use her imagination and figure out how to get out of tough spots. She also liked getting the opportunity to fight hand-to-hand with the Han clan members, although sadly, it happened very rarely. People preferred using guns, long distance weapons which would not bring their own lives in danger. So she wrapped herself up like a sushi and practiced her patience for weeks in order to steal things from rivaling clan members instead of actually <em>assassinating </em>anyone.</p><p> </p><p>Thankfully, she didn’t have time to reminisce on her rocky past for long – the night still hadn’t managed to fully envelop the world in darkness when she heard the guard yawn as he stopped right above the tree she was nestled in, which was the usual sign that he was going to go get the substitute.<br/><br/></p><p>She was already edgy, prepared to jump as soon as he left his post. But she didn’t even get a moment to prepare for jumping off the tree, because the moment the guard’s feet moved, he made a sound of surprise and fell onto the ground as if someone had zapped him.<br/><br/></p><p>She was confused. Was he luring her in by faking the whole thing? Was this some new anti-espionage tactic and was she going to fall for it?</p><p> </p><p>She couldn’t risk the possibility of it being real, though. She quickly secured the veil to the shawl’s hem, determined to not get into the situation of having to get rid of witnesses again, and started to get up and help the man before it was too late and he died of whatever had happened to him.</p><p> </p><p>But then she heard a rustle directly below her, and a hooded figure passed by the man and headed towards the house.</p><p> </p><p>Every hair on her body stood upright as she watched the figure move swiftly through the dark. He was not an amateur alright. He was a fully-trained assassin, that much was evident just from the fact that he hadn’t made a single sound and that if she didn’t know where to look, she wouldn’t have even noticed him. Her brows furrowed. But why would an assassin be here? What kind of mission was he on? Would he interfere with her own?<br/><br/></p><p>As she slowly made her way down the tree, she knew the answer to the question was <em>Yes, absolutely, of course</em>. Not just because of her ill luck; this place was a freaking beacon to people of her kind - and others who were much worse. The scoundrel had probably heard of the Kris Wu’s newest special painting and decided to take the money for himself. Or, he was actually there to <em>assassinate </em>someone - for example, Kris himself. <em>Did that mean he was coming back home tonight? Or is he going to break into the house and set up a trap for Kris? </em>She couldn’t know what his plans were yet, but if she was going to disturb a senior assassin while he set up a trap set to <em>murder </em>someone, it sure wasn’t going to end well for her. Her mind spun with more questions. Was he working alone or not? Who was he working for and why?</p><p> </p><p>All she knew was that she needed to proceed with maximum precaution as her feet touched the ground and she continued down the same path the assassin had taken, but not before checking the guard’s pulse – he was just out cold, thankfully, which solved half of her dramatic-exit problems. <em>At least I won</em><em>’t have to take the blame for murdering anyone</em>, she hoped.<br/><br/></p><p>She would’ve fought the two guards over the assassin any time of the day. Although something in her gut told her he wasn’t here to steal anything, there was still a possibility that Aeri was wrong in her judgment, and that this guy was also a thief - just like her. If he was here for the painting, she would have to fight for it, and she did not know anything about the person below the hood. Was he stronger or smarter than her? He didn’t look very tall, but the darkness could cast weird shadows and therefore she could not know. For all she knew, this guy could be some bulky Dwayne Johnson who could take her out with a single punch. She winced, absolutely <em>not </em>wanting to confront such a person. Or was the person under the hood a softy? Would he have a sense of chivalrousness and let her go with the painting?</p><p> </p><p>She had a feeling she would find out soon, as she followed the assassin’s path carefully and made her way to the house of the famous Kris Wu, a worldwide-known artist whose newest painting she had to steal in order to send a clear message to the Han clan that they knew he had joined their ranks and that they wouldn’t get away with what they’d done so easily.<br/><br/></p><p>She didn’t know much about the matter, except that Kris was an important figure in the business world, mostly supporting the Han clan through money and having joined them just recently. He’d married the <em>Han princess</em>, the sister of the Han clan leader Lu Han. She did not know the details of the marriage or whether Kris even knew what he was getting himself into when he decided to do it, but he seemed like a very important link in the chain of their rival clan and they needed to send a very clear message to them – they could <em>not</em> mess with the Oh clan.<br/><br/></p><p>The Oh clan and the Han clan were <em>always</em> in some kind of war and the whole rivalry thing had started long before she had joined their ranks. She considered all of it ridiculous, because no small argument or getting offended would be solved by murdering people and doing all kinds of atrocious things, some of which she’d participated in. She hoped the war would be over soon, so that she could actually take Soo’s advice and start burying herself underneath loads of paperwork, but she doubted it would <em>ever</em> happen. These clans lived off the pointless wars they kept getting themselves into – the higher-ups were apparently bored when things were good and they had a business partner instead of a shooting target.<br/><br/></p><p>Well, it wasn’t like her opinion mattered, anyway, because she was just a pawn in the game, without any real power over her life or her decisions. She’d gotten a task, and she was going to complete it – the clan did not put a time limit on her mission, so unless she got approached by another Oh agent telling her the mission was canceled, she wouldn’t be able to come back until she completed it.<br/><br/></p><p>It was a strange law, but it was one she respected. She just hoped that she would be able to steal the painting tonight, and that she wouldn’t have to go through the whole chilling-on-a-tree-in-the-unbearable-heat thing again. She yearned to go back to the compound, back to her routine, hand-to-hand combat training, chilling with Soo in his lab, teaching the trainees everything she knew, avoiding commander Jongdae. <em>Soon</em>, she promised herself. This was just another mission, the same as any other - wait for the perfect moment, get in, take what you need to, get out. It would be a piece of cake. <em>Right?</em><br/><br/></p><p>As she entered the house through the window which the mysterious assassin had previously disabled and opened, she again wondered why he was there, and if it was really just for the money from selling the already-famous painting. Perhaps he really had to carry out the mission of assassinating Kris Wu? But he wasn’t even in the house – he went to China for some kind of awarding ceremony and would be away for the next couple of days. That’s why she set the plan in motion tonight – she wanted to avoid the possibility of having to decide whether it would be better for her clan if Kris died, or if she could live with the risk of leaving a witness alive. It would be a tough decision to make, and she wanted to avoid getting herself into that situation in the first place. It would be easy to put the knife under his throat, but taking his life… taking anyone’s life… She shuddered, not wanting to go there.<br/><br/></p><p>The house was quiet, so her hopes of at least avoiding Kris propped her to move forward more eagerly. The guard in the watch house would keep looking at the video camera footage, having already mistaken her for a shadow at the edge of the cameras’ view. He would not suspect anything until 2 AM, when the other guard was to make that phone call, and only sound the alarm when the guy didn’t arrive to change posts. That left her plenty of time to work. Since the house was empty and the other guard out of the picture, she would have the breathing space she needed in order to be able to fight the assassin if she had to. She <em>hoped</em> it wouldn’t get to that, but she had a strong feeling that the assassin would not just give the painting to her if she asked him to do it, or even give her time to explain that she wasn’t here to interfere with whatever mission he was there to carry out.</p><p> </p><p>She got up the stairs without making a sound, having seen a glimpse of the all-black figure at the top of it upon reaching the living room a moment earlier. Did he already know she was there? She didn’t know how he possibly could. Whenever she was on a mission, she tried to stay wary of her surroundings even when the goal was in front of her face, but she’d never encountered another assassin interfering with her business. It was highly unlikely and something she would’ve never even considered, had this situation not occurred.<br/><br/></p><p>But it had, and now she had to play smart if she wanted to get out of this unharmed <em>and</em> victorious.</p><p> </p><p>At the top of the stairs was a long hallway, and though it was dark, she could see expensive things everywhere – from the huge paintings hanging off the walls to the china vases she had to be very careful not to break and the chandeliers hanging off the tall ceiling. The whole place smelled of newness and careless spending, but the odor was soulless and artificial – this mansion was not used very often, and it was not a <em>home</em> in the true sense of the word. She scoffed, much preferring the sounds and smells of her compound.</p><p> </p><p>She did not know which room the safe was in, but Kyungsoo always made sure she had a bag full of tricks, so she opened the too-heavy and too-big jacket she was already much too sick of and found the little device quickly. She didn’t have a lot of time, and with no sign of the other assassin anywhere, she had to rely on her skills of being completely silent in order to manage to find the painting and take it before the assassin had the time to do the same - or ruin her plans.<br/><br/></p><p>She activated the device without it beginning to blare in alarm, which she was proud of – she now understood fully well why her teachers were so strict on her during practice time. She’d thought moving around silently was absolutely unnecessary and meant strictly to make things harder for her, but she was thankful for all her struggles as she began moving through the hallway slowly, with the device in her hands. It looked similar to an old mobile phone, giving off the X-ray image of everything that was in front of her.<br/><br/></p><p>If the situation wasn’t so serious, she would laugh from joy – she felt like a smaller version of James Bond, seeing through walls and stealing things from rich brutes in order to achieve a noble goal. At times like these, she could pretend she was a secret agent instead of a mafia clan henchman, so she continued on with a small smile on her face.<br/><br/></p><p>It took her a couple of rooms and false alarms – her nerves were becoming very strained – until the safe showed up on the screen, seemingly camouflaged by a large painting of some Chinese guy with a bald head. She had no idea who it was, and judging by his appearance, she <em>definitely</em> didn’t want to find out.<br/><br/></p><p>This was her day, and her five minutes of glory. Her shoes did not echo on the polished wooden floor as she entered the room. The door didn’t creak. The device slipped back into her pocket without falling down onto the ground or starting to make unexpected sounds. Things were more perfect than during any practice, and if she’d had time, she would’ve actually been proud of herself.<br/><br/></p><p>But she didn’t have time.<br/><br/></p><p>As soon as she made the first step into the room, she found herself turned around and her front pinned to the wall, rough arms pushing her back so she had no free space to breathe.<br/><br/></p><p>“Who sent you here?” a deep, raspy voice said from behind her, and it didn’t sound the least bit happy about her arrival to the room.<br/><br/></p><p>She knew immediately what was going on – <em>she</em><em>’d failed</em>. Now, on top of all of her other worries and problems, she had to worry about an assassin trying to take away the painting and murdering her in the process. <em>Wonderful</em>.<br/><br/></p><p>“I said, <em>Who sent you</em>?” the voice repeated, louder and angrier because she hadn’t given any kind of response. But what could she say? That she was sent here by the Oh clan, which would probably only end up getting her in more trouble? <em>No</em>, she knew silence was safer. She would not betray her brotherhood, even if the assassin started beating her up. She wasn’t afraid of pain or torture. She was aware that she was just a pawn in a very important chess game, and she would do her part, even if it meant having to deal with the consequences. Just like any pawn, <em>she had no choice</em>.<br/><br/></p><p>Instead of answering the assassin, she focused on trying to slip a hand into the inner pocket of her jacket – it was full of all kinds of guns, but she was searching for something else, something much less fussy and much more effective.</p><p> </p><p>“Nobody,” she muttered, trying to shift the man’s focus from what she was doing. “I came here alone.” She fidgeted, trying to make it seem like she was struggling against his hold. She needed just a <em>little</em> bit of time.<br/><br/></p><p>“<em>You liar</em>,” he whispered loudly, his voice thick with disgust. “Trained assassins <em>never </em>work alone. They also don’t possess X-ray scanners.”</p><p> </p><p>His hands wrapped around her throat, putting some pressure onto it, but not enough to make her suffocate. “I swear I will kill you if I have to. Just answer the <em>damned</em> question, <em>Who sent you</em>?” His voice gradually turned from a whisper into an angry snarl, and it promised that the words he was speaking were true.<br/><br/></p><p>But it was too late for him and his threats, because she’d managed to find it. Having gone slack to trick him into thinking she was surrendering, she’d let him press into her in a way much too intimate for her liking, but the sacrifice was worth it, since now she didn’t have to make a strong move to be able to get him out of her way.<br/><br/></p><p>The smallest push and the turn of her arm was enough. The taser zapped his torso with a buzz, and he made a pained sound as he started shaking, his hands unwinding from her neck as he fell to the ground.<br/><br/></p><p>She did not say a word as she skipped over his spasming body. She could see nothing but closed eyes and pained creases around them. She <em>kinda</em> felt bad, but considering the fact that every breath hurt from what he’d done to her neck? She kinda <em>didn</em><em>’t</em> feel bad about him getting to experience some pain, too. “Jerk,” she muttered under her breath.</p><p> </p><p>She was quick on her heels, removing the painting of the condescending-looking Chinese guy and beginning to work on the safe. She put Soo’s newest invention onto it, a content smile on her face - she felt <em>cool</em>, and she most definitely looked cool, too. She would maybe even become a legend, the amateur whom she’d zapped beginning to spread the story about the heroine who’d tased him and then proceeded to crack open the safe within a minute, using some unknown alien technology.<br/><br/></p><p>She glanced at the assassin, just to see him out cold on the floor. She snorted to herself. <em>So much for his alpha-male threats.</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>Just like Soo had promised, the device was quick to work on the safe and almost soundless, the only indication that it was even doing something being the little crackling that could be heard when she leaned in closer to the safe. Soo had called it <em>The Cracker -</em> very innovative - but the name seemed to fit it, considering that it was using its needles to keep turning the wheels of the safe’s mechanism until it hit the right combination.<br/><br/></p><p>It would save her a lot of time and effort, and she didn’t doubt its success for a second, leaning against the desk behind her with her arms crossed when the safe opening magically after a minute.<br/><br/></p><p><em>Thanks, Soo</em>. The guy was a genius, and perhaps she would take up the offer of transferring into his branch if she could learn how to actually make this stuff. She had no idea how it worked, not really, but she she was perfectly content with just getting to <em>use</em> these toys and baffle everyone who was there to witness it. She would trust Kyungsoo with her life. If he said it worked, then <em>it worked</em>. Something her superiors - Jongdae especially - couldn’t seem to understand no matter how hard he tried.<br/><br/></p><p>She glanced at the assassin again - he was still lying down on the floor, like an old brick, and she was glad that he’d really lost consciousness from the electric shock he’d received. Again, Soo had saved her a lot of trouble and effort, and when she was back at the headquarters, she would praise him <em>so much</em>.</p><p> </p><p>The smile remained on her face as she took out the painting - her mission’s objective - from the safe and put it on the table to inspect whether it was really the original. Kris had a specific signature, one she’d seen around a million times, but she’d brought a copy of it anyway just to make sure that it was right. She would <em>not </em>mess this up.</p><p> </p><p>She wanted to start humming to herself - the mission was going even better than expected, and this would return her to her earlier glory. Perhaps she could put her mistakes where they belonged in the past, and perhaps they would all stop looking at her as if she was a pointless, incapable doll that would break under even the slightest pressure. She could feel victory all around her, could already feel the content gazes of her brotherhood, their appreciation, how content they would be with her. That was all she’d wanted - to <em>belong</em>.</p><p> </p><p>But as she took out a small flashlight and shone it over the painting, it all went away, replaced with a dreadful feeling crawling up her spine.<br/><br/></p><p><em>It was not possible</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Someone was joking with her.</p><p> </p><p>She blinked, but the painting remained the same.</p><p> </p><p>It was a child’s drawing of what looked like an… <em>animal snowman</em>? With… a hat and what appeared to be deer’s horns and a very, very indistinguishable Christmas tree.</p><p> </p><p>And a giant signature of Kris. She looked from the example signature to the one plastered onto the painting back and forth, not knowing what to think. All thoughts, all plans, they’d been erased from her mind instantly.</p><p> </p><p>“What the hell?” she couldn’t help but screech.</p><p> </p><p>She returned the comparison signature into her front pocket, and gulped.</p><p> </p><p>The safe was empty.</p><p> </p><p>No matter how much she touched its walls, it remained empty. No false bottoms, no hidden compartments. No other painting to steal.</p><p> </p><p>She turned to look at the painting again, praying that when the flashlight shone a light on it, it would become a real painting and stop making fun of her and this whole mission.<br/><br/></p><p>Instead of the animal version of the snowman, the flashlight lit upon two brown eyes and a masked face.</p><p> </p><p>The flashlight fell from her hands, and she lost her balance, but two hands caught her before she fell onto the ground.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, hey,” the voice said, now completely different than when it’d told her he would <em>kill her for sure</em>. “Are you okay?”</p><p> </p><p>As soon as her feet was steady on the ground, she wrenched her hands out of his. They began tingling, so she rubbed them against each other distractedly.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, I might have…” <em>Why was he still talking</em>? She took on her standard fighting posture, ready to fight it out with him the old-fashioned way and just get this over with soon. They didn’t have much time before the clock ticked 2 AM and they were inevitably caught. So why would he draw things out and try to talk with her? She looked him over, noting how he was just slightly taller than her. He looked <em>nothing </em>like Dwayne Johnson, thankfully - from the dark hair to the lean arms and an obvious lack of bulkiness to his shoulders. She sighed in relief inwardly. <em>She could kick this guy</em><em>’s ass with her eyes closed</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“I might have made a mistake when I’d attacked you, but I thought you were sent to <em>kill</em> Kris, not <em>steal</em> his stuff. You see, I don’t like assassins, especially not those who work for mafia clans, since they all write your name down in some notebook and start chasing you to the end of the world just because you’d seen their face and…”</p><p> </p><p>He kept talking, but she zoned out, too caught up on what he’d just told her to be able to process any more.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait,” she interrupted his ranting, “You are <em>not</em> an assassin?”</p><p> </p><p>She couldn’t think while she waited for him to answer.</p><p> </p><p>He shook his head, and she immediately relaxed, still not quite able to understand what this person was doing here, but the only thing that mattered was that this <em>wasn</em><em>’t</em> an assassin - just like he’d implied, she didn’t like them, because they were strange people with strange habits and they were hard to shake off once they caught onto someone. <em>Not that her rank was technically an assassin or anything</em>. In the Oh clan, to be an <em>assassin </em>meant to be <em>ready </em>to kill if it came to it - they wouldn’t throw a mission like this to someone with Soo’s qualifications, for sure. But none of them killed unless they were forced to, or if the mission specifically required it.</p><p> </p><p>She’d once dreamed of becoming an Oh clan assassin. She could not imagine that she would become just a henchman there to do all kinds of dirty jobs and nod her head at whatever the Oh clan wanted from her, so she wanted to avoid all assassins - sometimes it didn’t work, and then she had to get her hands dirty in order not to compromise her whole clan, but it was just part of the job, after all. <em>Everything they told her to do was a part of the job</em>.</p><p> </p><p>She blinked, coming back to Earth from the clouds which she used to straighten her thoughts out, and the hooded figure just stared back at her, the crack in his mask where his mouth was taking on the curve of a cocky smile. “You are here to steal Kris’ newest painting, right?”</p><p> </p><p>She immediately took on her karate stance again, to which he straight-out laughed. He raised his arms back in the air, and the smile didn’t disappear; instead, it seemed to be growing wider and wider. “Whoa, whoa, take it easy. I won’t take it from you. But it seems that, just like me, you’ve been tricked - you see, I was supposed to take some expensive stuff, too, but it seems that everything in this house is <em>fake</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>A frown appeared on her face, and she looked around herself. Now that she thought about it, the stuff did look kind of strange… And she couldn’t shake off how wrong everything smelled.</p><p> </p><p>She walked over to a nearby china vase and turned it around, just to find a large <em>Made in China</em> stamp on its bottom.</p><p> </p><p>“What on Earth…” she whispered, unable to wrap her mind around what was going on. First the fake painting, now the fake furniture? But why…</p><p> </p><p>Then it all became clear to her.</p><p> </p><p>“The house is a decoy,” they said at the same time, and she turned to look at him, just to see him grinning at her.</p><p> </p><p>“But that means that I’ve wasted weeks on nothing,” she whispered, putting a hand on her forehead. <em>So the Han clan wasn</em><em>’t that stupid after all</em>. Even though Kris was a relatively new member, they had gone through all that trouble to create a decoy house for fools like herself and the not-assassin guy to waste time on. “How could I miss something as big as this?”</p><p> </p><p><em>This was not good</em>. Her higher-ups wouldn’t be content about her findings, not at all, but at least she could hold her head up high because she’d managed to get into the house and discover that it was a decoy without falling into the trap. Her mind began to spin. She couldn’t believe that Jongdae would assign her to a decoy. Perhaps this was a test? Perhaps they wanted to see if she was capable of carrying this out successfully before allowing her to go on a real mission again?</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll be going, then,” she whispered, finally glancing at herself and becoming aware of her own looks. She froze, horrified.</p><p> </p><p>The shawl wasn’t a successful disguise anymore, no longer serving as a veil to protect her from an assassin’s eyes. It had fallen away from her face in all the commotion, and now the man standing in front of her knew how she looked. <em>Freaking hell</em>, she thought to herself. <em>Why always me?</em></p><p> </p><p>But that was not what she was most worried about, as silly as it was to feel that way. She was very much bothered by the way she looked, with the giant jacket and the black leather clothes wrapping around her curves in all the wrong ways. She did not want to be seen by any young man like this, like a savage with all the weapons and devices Soo had devised for her and made her carry with her. She probably looked like an overweight person. A very <em>stupid </em>overweight person.</p><p> </p><p>Then she remembered the taser, and how she’d knocked him out by zapping him. Her cheeks heated up as she turned to stare at the ground. “And, uh… I’m sorry about the taser thing,” she barely managed to say somehow, immediately turning towards the doorway to make a quick exit and disappear before she managed to make herself look like more of a freak.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait,” the guy said, his voice now velvety and pleasant, as he caught her wrist before she’d managed to make her retreat. She looked at the hand that was making her skin tingle again, and noticed a tattoo on the light-toned skin.</p><p> </p><p><em>Mundus vult decipi, ergo</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s no reason to feel bad about it - you were just defending yourself. I shouldn’t have attacked you, but I’d seen you when you crossed the wall and your movements were so well-trained that I thought you were most certainly an assassin…” He trailed off, his voice still light, as if he could laugh at any second. She wanted him to laugh again.</p><p> </p><p>She could not understand the urge, but she couldn’t deny that she liked his voice very, <em>very much</em>. “Your movements were so good that I thought the same thing,” she said, wanting to compliment him the same way. “I’m sorry that neither of us could carry out our missions.”</p><p> </p><p>“Goodbye, then,” he said gently. Even his eyes seemed to be smiling at her.</p><p> </p><p>“Goodbye,” she said back, with the wave of a hand. He had let go of her wrists as soon as she turned, but her wrist was still tingling. She fought the urge to start rubbing it to make the strange feeling go away.</p><p> </p><p>As she left the house soundlessly, she realized that she hadn’t asked him for his name.</p><p> </p><p>But she wouldn’t need it to recognize him, if they ever met again.</p><p> </p><p>No. She would be able to recognize him even if he never took off his mask.</p><p> </p><p>Just like he would be able to recognize her.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>The world wants to be deceived.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>So let it.</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Suspension</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She was in <em>so much trouble</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Kyungsoo’s puppy eyes staring at her from behind his desk where something was about to explode weren’t helping at all.</p><p> </p><p>“Soo,” she snapped when she counted to 30 and he still didn’t blink a single time, “Your desk is going to explode.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh!” he jumped, turning in circles like a frightened ostrich and searching for something to extinguish the smoke that was coming from a seemingly harmless component. She didn’t even want to know what he’d been working on when she’d entered the lab. He would launch into one of his two-hour speeches about magnetism and electric components and she could <em>not </em>handle something like that right now.</p><p> </p><p>Nothing Soo ever made was harmless, she knew as much. He’d once nearly killed them all when he’d been experimenting with liquid nitrogen and poured something into it that made a huge explosion break out. It had nearly destroyed the whole lab, the only good thing about it being the fact that the nitrogen evaporated, so they were able to extinguish the fire easily. But if he hadn’t been his father’s son, if he hadn’t been able to reimburse the damage and reconstruct the lab, he would’ve been kicked out of the clan <em>or worse</em>. She remembered how scared she’d been back then, whispering to him over and over again how this wasn’t worth it, he needed to get it together and stop doing this stuff.</p><p> </p><p>More often than not, she worried about <em>his</em> health rather than her own, because he was always the one to try out his inventions first - even those that were malfunctioning. <em>Especially</em> those, actually. He was perfectly fine with putting magnets on his head and trying out his newest mind control gadget, even when it put him in a hospital for a month. He was so passionate about his work that <em>nothing </em>- not even her pleads and cries - could make him stop.</p><p> </p><p>Now, though, it was her best friend who was worried about her, and instead of talking about it with her, he chose to stare at her until she broke down or something, which was probably what he expected to happen sooner or later, even though she’d told him a million times that she was <em>fine</em>. <em>Fine, fine, everything is under control, the New York incident with the guard was worse, they didn</em><em>’t even yell at me that much</em>. She knew he didn’t buy it, of course, but it was the best she could offer him right now.</p><p> </p><p>A couple of minutes later, Soo’d <em>finally </em>managed to extinguish the smoke and break a couple of other half-complete inventions in the process. He even cursed once, and she would’ve raised her eyebrows if she didn’t know it meant his composure was breaking down. She was still wincing because Soo had burned himself, all around him was shattered glass and plastic, and his hands were wrapped up in some wires he’d had to plug from the burning device - she had no idea what what he’d even hoped to make with those things.</p><p> </p><p>“Soo,” she started slowly, putting her hands in front of herself in hopes of reassuring him while he continued throwing the cloth over different parts of the table though the fire was already extinguished. She heard a wire snap, which made her wince. “Soo, it’s okay, you can stop now.”</p><p> </p><p>He began muttering at a hundred miles per hour, as if he’d just been waiting for a moment to blow up. “But what if they kick you out, or if they decide to torture you or give you one of those permanent marks that all the gangs can identify so they start bothering you, or if they cut up your face and leave a scar so that everyone can see it-”</p><p> </p><p>Her sigh thankfully made him stop. He put both of his hands on the desk and balled them into fists as he sat back into his chair, like a child that didn’t even know what problem it’d created but that knew it <em>had</em> created one. He just sat there, panting, staring at his hands, keeping his turmoil to himself for the moment.</p><p> </p><p>“Kyungsoo, they are not going to throw me out or do anything like that, okay?” she said tiredly and dejectedly. “I’d made a mistake, but I hadn’t done it <em>on purpose</em> and they know that. They know that the situation is ridiculous and kind of absurd, so they aren’t going to punish me.” <em>Not badly, at least</em>, but she would be punished, that much she knew. Kyungsoo didn’t need to know, though.</p><p> </p><p>She knew what track Soo’s thoughts were on, though. Loyalty was the most important thing in every mafia clan. If someone turned out to be a mole, selling information outside of the clan or sleeping with the enemy, they were immediately prosecuted and sentenced to die a quick and swift death.</p><p> </p><p>But if someone compromised the clan without wanting to - say, if someone failed to execute a mission successfully and came back with an excuse or they busted the whole operation - they weren’t prosecuted but only <em>warned</em> and put under <em>surveillance</em>. After some time, mostly everyone was deemed fit to go back to their normal activities and let off the hook, but multiple mistakes were <em>not</em> tolerated.</p><p> </p><p>She knew that very well. She’d seen comrades get thrown out and punished for being clumsy or disobedient in the past. Some of them have been branded traitors though their only sin was being unable to see beyond today and scheme against the Han clan to intercept all their next moves. One guy from her generation of trainees got a scar on his face for talking about Jongdae behind his back, and one guy merely a year older than her had his pinkie cut off for having deserted his guarding place during a mission.</p><p> </p><p>It was a cruel life, being a part of the Oh clan, and having to deal with mafia on a daily basis. But it was much better than all the alternatives, so she grit her teeth and accepted her fate, which involved having to make her hands dirty all the times, but at the same time it meant her family would remain clean, taken care of, well fed and living in a warm, cozy house in Seattle, far away from her, thinking she’d married a wealthy businessman at the age of 16 and living the life.</p><p> </p><p>And that was <em>perfectly</em> acceptable for her.</p><p> </p><p>“Tell me exactly what happened,” Soo said, his eyes still huge as he thought about her current position. “When I found out that you’d failed, I just couldn’t believe it. I mean, you are the <em>best</em> agent ever and they said you were going to stand trial because you’d betrayed us. I just couldn’t believe that.”</p><p> </p><p>She smiled, in spite of the situation. She couldn’t help it - Soo was so <em>adorable</em>, with his disheveled dark brown hair which looked lighter than usual under the bright lights of the lab’s lamps and wide, innocent gaze colored like the ocean warming her insides. He worried about her so honestly. He was what kept her going, actually, apart from her deal with commander Junmyeon. Whenever things got tough, he was always there for her, ready to lift her on her feet within a moment. She wanted to protect him, always. And she most certainly didn’t want him to ever have a reason to believe she was a traitor.</p><p> </p><p>In order to protect him, she needed to <em>stay</em> in the brotherhood first, though, so she would fight as hard as she could to be on her best behavior - for her own sake, for Soo’s sake and for the sake of her whole family. It all depended on her, and she <em>would</em> do her part.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, my biggest mistake was believing that the painting was a fake even after verifying the validity of Kris Wu’s signature,” she said with a sigh, walking over to the nearest chair and throwing herself into it tiredly. She refused to meet Kyungsoo’s gaze. “They deemed me <em>too naive</em> and <em>easy to fool</em>. But hell, I’d thought the guy was an assassin - what was I supposed to do? My priority was staying alive without alerting the guards to my presence! And after that he sold me that story about a decoy house - when I saw the <em>Made in China </em>brand, it all started to make sense to me. Who would’ve thought that freaking Kris Wu didn’t like to spend his money?”</p><p> </p><p>Soo put his legs on the ground and pushed himself towards her. His chair rolled over to her, and the ridiculous sight of his hands still wrapped up in the wires made her crack up and much of the previous tension melt away. She snorted and decided to busy herself with unwrapping the wires in order not to feel the shame because the commanders <em>were</em> right - she had been too naive indeed. “Look what you’d done to yourself, baby,” she said quietly, the smile evident in her voice.</p><p> </p><p>That made his lips quirk, but they did not pull into a smile. He lifted his face towards her, something hard in his vivid blue eyes. “Was it…” He stopped and took a deep breath. “Was it something from the gear? If something malfunctioned, you should just say so, I’ll gladly take the blame-”</p><p> </p><p>Aeri cut him off, her voice sounding raspy. “Stop the freaking nonsense, Kyungsoo. The equipment worked fine! <em>I </em>was the one who decided that the painting was fake. But it was <em>your </em>equipment that showed me where the safe was and then cracked it for me.” Her next words came out as a growl, and she was distantly aware that she was clutching his hands too hard. “Don’t you <em>dare </em>try to take the blame for this. I’d never forgive you.”</p><p> </p><p>Now they were both panting, and she saw the pang of guilt in Soo’s eyes before he flinched and recoiled from her. She couldn’t believe this - she’d actually guessed right. He really wanted to take the blame for this? Oh, she knew he’d gladly run over to their superiors and say some mumbo-jumbo about how the Cracker started controlling her mind and made her act unreasonably, but couldn’t he consider how that would look to everyone?</p><p> </p><p>She could already hear the whispers of the trainees in the halls - <em>The Do heir continues his rampage without punishment! He and his weakling lover once again prove his inventions are nothing but crap that belongs in the trash, just like them! </em>She shuddered inwardly. There were already so many nonsense rumors, from how she Kyungsoo had brought her in from a brothel to them already having wed and having two children stashed away on a private island somewhere. She didn’t quite get why everyone was trying to play matchmaker with her and Soo, but then again, his background and the amount of money everyone knew he had… People believed she was his friend just because of that. Her hands involuntarily clenched into fists and she opened her mouth to chase the feeling away.</p><p>
  
</p><p>“How can you step over your inventions so easily?” she attempted to say, but it ended up sounding like a desperate gurgle. “You are brilliant, Soo. They all need to know that. Hell, I’m not even sure <em>you </em>know that. <em>I </em>would go in there and lie for <em>you</em>, because what you’re doing is actually important. Someday you’ll make a teleportation device or a freaking time machine. I? I will just be replaced by someone else who can do my job as good as me - someone who can probably do it even better. And you’re irreplaceable.”</p><p> </p><p><em>Where did that come from? </em>she wondered. Although it felt embarrassing to say such personal things, Aeri felt calm - all of it was true. She’d throw herself in front of a bullet for Soo any day. She’d murder and light the world on fire if that’s what it took to keep him safe and have him wrapping his hands in wires and making liquid nitrogen explode or whatever. <em>He</em><em>’d someday invent something that would end the war. </em>She knew it in her gut.</p><p> </p><p>Kyungsoo was… Well, his brain seemed to have shut down, because he was as still as a statue. His unblinking eyes stared at her as if she was an alien.</p><p> </p><p>After a couple of awkward seconds which she waited out patiently, Kyungsoo blinked. Then he took a deep, deep breath. She knew what was coming next, bracing herself for it. She already eyed the bottle of water on the table nearby, thankful that she didn’t need to go look for it.</p><p> </p><p>Soo took another breath, more shallow this time. And then another. And another.</p><p> </p><p>Then he launched into a garbled ramble, his breaths coming out more and more shallow as he tried to get all the words out of his fried brain. “That is not true- My inventions are not- How on earth can you imply that you would- And a teleportation device- I could never open a wormhole- And you can go only to the future-” He gasped after each of his failed sentences, mouthing words although he couldn’t finish them.</p><p> </p><p>Everything was fine. She’d been here at least fifty times through the past eight years, not letting herself get caught unprepared in order to be able to help Soo through this. She was already up, the bottle of water in her hand, uncapped and her left hand wet, getting ready to spray water onto his neck. She reached into the top drawer of his desk, quickly grabbed his inhalator and turned to attend to his hyperventilating state.</p><p> </p><p>But his next words froze her in place.</p><p> </p><p>His voice was barely a whisper, and she wished she could tell herself she’d imagined it. “You are not a gadget that can just be disposed of. You never give yourself enough credit. You had saved my life more times than I can count, and no invention can ever make up for that. No time machine can <em>ever </em>be more important and irreplaceable than that.”</p><p> </p><p>Now she was the one struggling to stay composed, her face contorted in a grimace because she <em>did not want to hear this</em>, she <em>did not have the strength to deal with this</em>, she <em>did not want to believe in this</em>.</p><p> </p><p>But she was also a practical person that could put the mask on within moments. She quickly put the inhalator into his mouth and whispered, “Just breathe, Soo.” Her other hand came up and wrapped around his neck, the dampness soothing the redness and calming him down.</p><p> </p><p>After counting seven breaths, she put the inhalator on the table behind them and let him work it out. She refused to look at him, so she focused on his hands, which were thankfully still lamely tangled in wires. She began pulling this way and that, trying to untangle them once again, her pulse audible in her ears. And although she tried to shut it down, her mind kept replaying his words to her - <em>you had saved my life, you had saved my life</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“I think it wasn’t your fault,” Soo said quietly after a minute, staring at her hands, which were still trying to untangle the mountain of wires. “It was your first field mission alone after… <em>you know</em>. I think it’s understandable that your judgment wasn’t so clear. None of those commanders would’ve done better, and they all know it.”</p><p> </p><p>She hated it when he did that. Even though she knew her friend was just trying to protect her and make her feel less awful, she <em>didn</em><em>’t</em> want his pity or petty excuses. She was thankful for the change in subject, though, because his previous words were still replaying in her mind. <em>You are not a gadget</em>.</p><p> </p><p>So though she knew it’d hurt him, she narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest, letting his hands go. Out of all the things he’d said, she focused on the only one she <em>didn</em><em>’t </em>want him mentioning - her previous scandal with nearly killing a guard. “Don’t you dare use <em>that</em> as an argument for anything,” she said in a harsh tone. “I said I was over that, and that’s true. I hadn’t made a mistake while handling the guards. This was something entirely different.”</p><p> </p><p>Soo opted out of trying to free his hands. She suspected that, had he managed to free them, he would’ve tried to console her somehow, and it only made her feel angrier. She didn’t want him to comfort her. She knew how to deal with Jongdae’s scoffing, with the insults, with Junmyeon’s disappointed looks. <em>Understanding? </em>She didn’t deal with that.</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t mean to offend you. I just…” He bit his lip and put his legs on the ground again, rolling himself away from her. She let loose the breath she didn’t know she was holding, feeling a lot less pressured without his eyes trained on her.</p><p> </p><p>She heard his words loud and clear, though, even though it was only a whisper. “I just… I don’t want you to get into trouble, Ae. What would I do without you?”</p><p> </p><p>All her pressure-induced anger slowly faded away. She remembered this was <em>Soo</em>, not a commander, not a higher-up, and definitely not a hostile unknown person. He cared about her and supported her through her hard times. She could trust him. She could afford vulnerability and understanding and whatever emotional garbage this talk had initiated.</p><p> </p><p>So she got up, untangled his hands from the wires in one go and prevented him from knocking an explosive-looking device over with his elbow. And then she hugged him tightly, knowing he’d need a bit of time to process all of the sudden actions. His breathing had slowed considerably, but the hyperventilating was always lurking behind the corner. She hoped this wouldn’t lunch him into another attack.</p><p> </p><p>“I know, Soo,” she whispered as she hid her head in his hair, snaking her arms around him. It smelled like barbecue. “I’m sorry. I’m just angry at myself for messing up, and it’s only fair that I get punished accordingly. You can’t protect me for everything, and I technically <em>did </em>deserve this.”</p><p> </p><p>Had she not known him for such a long time, she would’ve thought he was dead, because he didn’t even dare breathe in air while she was hugging him. But this was Soo, and <em>weird</em> meant <em>ordinary</em> for him. She loved the fact that things were like that - she always knew what to expect from him and how to read into his reactions. It made her feel normal for a change.</p><p> </p><p>She lingered for a moment and then returned to her chair, leaving whatever was unspoken between them slowly dissipate. <em>I</em><em>’m sorry for taking my bad mood out on you. I’m sorry for getting myself in this position. I’m sorry that you have to worry about me.</em></p><p> </p><p>Then she told him all about her <em>suspension</em> and how lame it was going to be. She’d go to missions with her commander babysitters from now on. She would be forbidden from leaving the HQ alone or without special permission, and she would have to leave most of Kyungsoo’s inventions in the lab, because they’d deemed she was <em>too distracted by all the tech</em> in order to do a decent job.</p><p> </p><p>She left out the part where they said his tech was <em>useless</em> and how she’d only <em>wasted precious time scanning the rooms when she could</em><em>’ve intercepted the cheater’s movements and stopped him altogether</em>. They were all blind, and she’d have to wait for the appropriate time to make them see just how amazing Soo and his work were.</p><p> </p><p>Regardless of knowing how they’d react, she tried to argue with them - about the usefulness of Soo’s equipment and about the fact that she <em>had</em> managed to incapacitate the fake-burglar assassin, but all they cared about was the fact that she hadn’t seen his face, and that he was now roaming freely around the world.</p><p> </p><p>Thank God, things weren’t quite that bad. She <em>could</em> identify him by his tattoo, and when she did, she was going to make him pay. <em>That was a promise</em>.</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t so much about getting suspended and all. Yes, it was unfair to get suspended when she’d done <em>almost</em> everything right, when she’d shown that she was capable to go on missions alone again, when she’d completed the mission without any casualties and gained important intel about Kris, the Han clan’s newest member.</p><p> </p><p>She just hated that the brown-eyed man had made her look like a fool. But who would’ve thought that Kris Wu actually painted like a <em>freaking child</em>?</p><p> </p><p>Commander Jongdae also seemed worried about the implications of the mysterious man’s presence. <em>Why had he been there? How had he known that everything in the house was a fake? Was that even true, or was it just sheer luck that the vase she</em><em>’d picked up was from China? Had he stolen the painting himself, and if so, why hasn’t it resurfaced yet? And why was he so capable in the first place - who’d trained him? Why hadn’t they heard of him before</em>? The description she’d given them didn’t ring any bells - nobody had ever heard of such a tattoo. Most of them bet on another rival clan or a possible vigilante trying to get some kind of revenge on their clan. Both theories sounded equally awful, because either having another clan or a vigilante getting tangled in the mess that the Oh-Han war was would only create more problems.</p><p> </p><p>Yes, there were so many unanswered questions and mysteries about this guy, but she didn’t care about whether he’d stolen the painting for himself or not - she just needed him to give it back, because she’d found it first! She wanted to buckle up with as many weapons as she could and go turn the world upside down until she found him.</p><p> </p><p>But of course that wasn’t going to happen. Especially when she was now assigned with commanders who’d watch her every move. She wouldn’t be able to go on a hunt. She wouldn’t be able to find him and punch him in the face. Or perhaps use that taser on him again. Multiple times, preferably.</p><p> </p><p>A couple of days passed, and she focused on staying in shape, because she had no idea when her next mission would start. It was good to be back in the civilized world after weeks of doing nothing but analyzing patterns of behavior from those guards. She didn’t want to have to do that ever again. Her muscles had grown weary, her back hurting from crouching in the trees for too long. She felt dizzy for having eaten next to nothing during the previous day, so she wanted to build up her strength - preferably as soon as possible, just in case the man reappeared.</p><p> </p><p>She was in the gym, practicing some of her trademark sneaky moves whilst imagining a certain brown eyes instead of the punching bag when commander Junmyeon approached her.</p><p> </p><p>“You need to put less pressure on the left leg,” he commented from behind her while she swung at an imaginary opponent on her left - one that had a certain tattoo on his arm, “And your posture isn’t quite right. You’re leaning too far to the front - this way, someone can easily catch you by the elbows and push you to the ground even with just a slight height difference.”</p><p> </p><p>She immediately stopped what she was doing and saluted her commander. “Sir, yes, sir!” she roared, while a lump formed in her throat. <em>Were they going to punish her some more? Was she going to get some ridiculous tasks as an extra punishment?</em></p><p> </p><p>Junmyeon laughed at her. “Knock it off, kiddo,” he said while rolling his eyes at her. “Come on, you are not a novice. We all still see you as the same person you were before going on this mission - or the mission that almost got that guard killed.”</p><p> </p><p>She swallowed, though her first commander’s words made her feel warm inside. Junmyeon was the nicest person in the world - Soo excluded - because he always, <em>always</em> saw through a person and all their shields and took care of them as if they were his own children.</p><p> </p><p>He’d also kinda practically raised her, if spending every moment under his command ever since coming to this place could be called that way, which made her <em>very</em> subjective when it came to her judgment of him. He was the person she came to whenever she had something nagging on her mind, and she knew he appreciated the trust she put into him. He’d also never once betrayed that trust in the eight years she’d been there. Not from the moment he’d smiled down at her bloody, battered face in that alley, telling her to <em>get up, kiddo, you</em><em>’re coming home</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“I know, commander,” she said while nodding her head. “But I’m also on parole, and they said I need to put on my best image and behave in the nicest way possible, so I’m trying to get used to it.”</p><p> </p><p>Junmyeon led her over to a bench, where two bottles of water were waiting for them - had he prepared them? It was a pointless question - <em>of course</em> he had. Junmyeon was like that - he always knew exactly what to do, and exactly how to treat everyone in order to make them feel respected and happy. He was known to buy his assigned novices clothes when their usual attires got too worn out. He also prepared food for them every once in a while, just bursting through the door through a cake although it wasn’t anyone’s birthday. All his novices loved him and looked up to him, forged by love rather than fear.</p><p> </p><p>The only sad things was, he was <em>the only</em> commander that behaved in this way. The other commanders were scary, heartless and cruel, and she’d hoped she’d never get to experience their way of raising for herself. Unfortunately, she <em>had</em>, being stuck in detention for mundane things and suspecting commander Jongdae did it just to piss Junmyeon off.</p><p> </p><p>Junmyeon’s voice stopped her train of thought. “How are you feeling?” he asked in that gentle, fatherly tone of his while she drank the water, contemplating whether to down it all in one go or to save some for later. She decided <em>to hell with it</em>. “Are you feeling bored, holed up in the HQ?”</p><p> </p><p>It took her a couple of seconds to be able to speak again. “Well, it’s never boring with Soo around. He keeps breaking and building stuff, and he jumps from one idea to another so fast that sometimes I just can’t keep up with it.” She put her hands on her temples and then imitated the sound of an explosion, moving her hands away quickly.</p><p> </p><p>Junmyeon laughed at her representation of <em>mind-blown</em>. “But yeah, I am bored here. I feel like I can do a lot more for the brotherhood, or at least make up for my failure.” She sighed deeply, playing with the empty bottle while feeling her mentor’s warm gaze on her.</p><p> </p><p>“I need to prove I’m worthy, you know? I feel like everybody is treating me differently because of what had happened the last time I went on a mission alone and I… I wanted to surpass that, show them I’m okay, but I only managed to mess it up again this time.” He nodded along, already aware of her inner turmoil, having spent many days just like this, sitting on the bench with her and letting her explain to him how awful it felt to fail.</p><p> </p><p>“Would you like a chance to do that?” Junmyeon said lightly, as if he was talking about the weather when her whole reputation was at stake here. She froze.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>What</em>?” she said carefully in a small voice, finally brave enough to meet his gaze. There were specks of silver in his perfectly combed light brown hair, reminding her of the time that had passed since she’d first met him before joining the ranks. Back then, there was no grey hair, just spotless brown everywhere.</p><p> </p><p>His eyes were warm, and almost turned into little crescents as he smiled at her. He was her first friend in this place. He’d introduced her to this world, to the other side, and made sure she got through it without dying or being badly scarred. Not all novices were that lucky.</p><p> </p><p>“Another mission is going to take place soon,” Junmyeon said carefully, his eyebrows raising while waiting for her reaction. She was still frozen in place. “So I thought I’d offer you a place on it, since I know you’ve been holed up and bored in here. But if you aren’t feeling up for it….”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>No</em>!” she shouted, getting up immediately. “Nononononono pleaseno.” She was barely able to form a sentence, and she threw herself at her mentor, almost ready to cry. “I promise I won’t make a mess, just give me a chance to prove myself, please Junmyeon <em>please</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>He straight-out laughed at her and patted her on the head, her brown curls tangling in his fingers. “Don’t be pouty. Of course you can go, but take it seriously - no messing up this time. Plus, you’ll be paired up with a serious commander, and he won’t tolerate mistakes. So make sure you do everything he says, or else his report isn’t going to be pretty.”</p><p> </p><p>She roared in happiness and victory, getting up in a flash and taking Junmyeon with her. Then she started spinning around and hugging him <em>way too tightly for comfort</em>. He began to laugh again, and this time she joined him.</p><p> </p><p>Everyone knew how much of a hugger Junmyeon was, so she knew he wouldn’t mind, even if her behavior was inappropriate. “I’m going on a mission,” she sang while Junmyeon ruffled her hair.</p><p> </p><p>She had so many friends here, she realized. People who <em>loved </em>her, and whom she loved with her whole heart. The dark clouds floated away from her, taking all the bitterness from her time at the Oh clan away for now. She knew that everything would be alright sooner or later. She just needed to get through everything without causing further problems.</p><p> </p><p>She spent some time training with Junmyeon, enjoying his praises about the speed of her reflexes and her dead-on aim. He’d always encouraged her hand-to-hand combat studies, although some commanders kept arguing how it would be useless. Who needed fighting skills when they could shoot bullets from sniper guns from hundreds of meters away? She’d argued with many of her teachers about it, but <em>never </em>Junmyeon. Even if the revolver always safely tucked into the holster at his belt seemed to mock her whenever she looked at it, seemingly saying <em>Whatever he says, I</em><em>’m still here, the evidence of how martial arts can never be enough</em>. She still hadn’t gotten used to the feeling of wearing a gun, and doubted she ever truly would. But it was how her clan wanted her to be, and so she stuck with it.</p><p> </p><p>The next morning, her own words came back to her in a flash - <em>no commander was like Junmyeon </em>indeed. Jongdae didn’t say so much as a <em>Good morning</em>, let alone hug her or dance along with her. She almost snorted to herself. <em>Not that something like that would ever happen, not even in my dreams</em>, she thought. If Junmyeon was the personification of warmth, the sun’s rays on her skin every time he so much as got close to her, then Jongdae could be the representation of the Antarctic. A cold, prickling feeling that threatened to break her bones, harsh and full of hatred for everyone, including itself.</p><p> </p><p>But Jongdae wasn’t like that without a reason. It was just hard not to be biased when it came to the matter, since her mentor was involved as well. And no matter how many times she’d heard the story from her friends as a junior trainee, she didn’t believe any of it. Junmyeon, hitting on the girlfriend of his best friend? Getting her pregnant while <em>she was still in relationship with Jongdae</em>? Hell no. Hell would freeze over before she’d believe in anything so ridiculous. After all, rumors were that she and Kyungsoo had two children <em>before</em> she’d even joined the Oh clan, and she was thirteen at the time. Only children believed in those stories, meant to entertain and introduce the clan to the new, young members. Of course, it just so happened that her description was basically a cheap girl who’d wooed a boy to get access to all his money. <em>What a moral figure she</em><em>’d pose to all the 1st graders of the academy</em>.</p><p> </p><p>She shook her head, focusing on the task at hand. Jongdae didn’t share all the intel with her, and she had many questions, but she kept her mouth shut as they made their way over to the house of the <em>Oh</em> family. His blood-red hair looked intimidating enough, freshly dyed as if he’d done it in preparation for this new super-secret and supposedly not-dangerous mission.</p><p> </p><p>There was so much going on that she was barely able to keep focus anymore, combined with her stupefaction from what had happened at her own mission. Jongdae had said that they’d gotten a tip about some kind of murderer walking around the woods behind the <em>Oh</em> family’s house. He didn’t say from whom they’d gotten the tip or why they chose to believe in it. It didn’t seem convincing, because why in the world would a murderer be roaming the woods aimlessly? It wasn’t a wild animal, and no assassin acted like that anyway, so she knew it was just some cover-up story that was usually given to novices in order to make them stay calm and stop asking questions when they didn’t want them to find out something actually important.</p><p> </p><p><em>As if she couldn</em><em>’t stay calm after being told the truth</em>. She would’ve gotten angry had Soo’s words not come back to her - perhaps they were just worried and wanted to keep her safe? Perhaps this wasn’t a test of her skills, but a nudge in the direction of redemption and getting accustomed to full missions after her incident with the guards. She hoped they wouldn’t make her go through therapy, if anything.</p><p> </p><p>Seeing her commander sharpening his knife in the back of the terrain vehicle assured her that the whole lovey-dovey thing was a pile of crap. He most definitely didn’t give a damn about her feelings or whether she needed help with her traumas. He was here to do a job, and he wouldn’t hesitate to stab her with that knife in his hand if she stood in the way of it. She didn’t doubt it for a second, having experienced his pent-up rage on her own skin many times. She even had some scars on her back from the time spent in detention. And although Jongdae was on her side, she had to remind herself of it over and over again, goosebumps raising on her skin every time she remembered the little tortures he’d enjoyed putting her through over the years.</p><p> </p><p>So instead on the lies she’d been told about the objective of their mission, she focused on the fact that she was going to see the <em>Oh</em> family house. She’d been mesmerized by the family ever since she’d gotten into the whole mafia thing. She - like every other trainee - dreamed of someday meeting Oh Sehun, the head of the clan, and seeing for herself whether the rumors were true and he was the most handsome man in the world. She sometimes even dared to dream of being assigned to guard the child his wife Miya was bearing, although it was less likely than encountering an alien.</p><p> </p><p>The Oh clan was special, and a long time ago, she thought becoming a part of its ranks would stay just a fuzzy dream that’d never be fulfilled, like most of the things in her life. At the very beginning, she’d struggled so much and couldn’t sleep at night, wondering if the commanders would choose that exact moment to knock on her door and tell her she wasn’t enough, she would never be good enough, throwing her back out onto the streets to steal scraps and rummage through trash and try to feed her starving family.</p><p> </p><p>But they were different than the other mafia families. This mafia served as a representative of the normal people, one that could retaliate to the pointless attacks of the other clans, that could claim territory and protect the people from the constant racketeering and the violence that used to be frequent in the so-called <em>hotspot</em> areas. Hotspot areas were places of special interest for all clans, such as streets with famous shops or attractions for tourists. They were almost always the places where wars broke out, because everyone wanted to claim that territory as their own.</p><p> </p><p>But when the Oh clan captured a hotspot, it didn’t turn into a war zone. Instead, they protected it from the gangs that wanted to rob the stores and lure the tourists into traps used for human or organ trafficking.</p><p> </p><p>She’d always admired them, noticing that there were laws in place long before she’d actually been introduced to the clan. She’d seen it for herself many times, how they’d made places full of poor, tortured people prosper. The streets were always praising them, and she’d dreamed of becoming one of them, contributing to their cause, fighting against those who tried to take what little dignity the people living at the rock bottom - like herself - had.</p><p> </p><p>And now, nearly a decade later, she would perhaps even see some of the most important people of the clan from a distance. Now she would <em>actually</em> participate in their protection - presumably from other clans, she reasoned. And she’d fight until her last breath to keep them safe, because they made the world a better place.</p><p> </p><p>Her words from the previous day came back, and she once again realized how firmly believed in what she’d told Kyungsoo. The heads of the Oh clan mattered, and weren’t replaceable. On the other hand, she was expendable, and if laying her life down for the sake of these good people was the only way to do it, she would do so without blinking, without hesitating for a second. It was the least she could offer for having turned her life around, for keeping her family safe for all these years, for giving them jobs and money and everything that was once unavailable to them.</p><p> </p><p>The vehicle she was driving in with Jongdae stopped in the middle of the woods - or so it seemed, because the maple trees they passed were all of the same height for a while now. All around her were trees with big red leaves, and instead of letting herself be taken back by the sheer beauty of it, she looked over the visible area, looking for tracks, strange sounds and anything out of the ordinary. The woods were silent, which was uncommon for summer. There should’ve been birds, even squirrels and other small animals moving in the shadows of the trees. She heard chirping of the birds, but it seemed too distant for comfort.</p><p> </p><p>She did not know exactly what was going on, but it didn’t matter - she trusted her commander. Even if that commander was someone as ruthless as Jongdae.</p><p> </p><p>They climbed out of the vehicle, and the vehicle immediately pulled away, leaving them in the sunshine alone. <em>Damn, it was hot outside</em>. It reminded her of the merciless heat she’d felt while crouching in that tree at Kris Wu’s property, but the feelings swirling inside of her were very much different now. Then she’d felt calm, sure of herself, with plans A, B, C and D inside of her head. Back then she’d been prepared. Now? She had no idea what was happening, why Junmyeon had pulled strings to let her go on this mission, what the real reason for them being in these woods was, whether their boss was really in danger, whether this was some kind of test. But she didn’t let it suffocate, instead raising her head up high and gritting her teeth in anticipation of what was going to happen.</p><p> </p><p>“We have to secure the perimeter,” Jongdae said matter-of-factly. “We will round a half-circle and meet on the opposite side of the estate, on the cliff lookout.” She nodded along - this was not the first time she was doing such a thing. She’d done this at her field practice numerous times, so she knew all the protocols. She wasn’t too familiar with the plans of the Oh mansion, but she knew the property had a circular-shaped boundary, with thick maple woods surrounding the area. In the center of it was a large house where Oh Sehun and his wife currently lived. It was obscured from view, it had many guardians, and she once again wondered <em>why the two of them were playing extra security here</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“Take this,” her commander said coldly, handing her a gun. “And don’t hesitate to use it if you need to. No freezing crap like on your last missions or attempting hand-to-hand. Someone threatens you, you shoot them.”</p><p> </p><p>She gulped. She did not want to murder anyone today. But if it was a murderer, or an assassin threatening her boss’ family security…</p><p> </p><p>She would not hesitate.</p><p> </p><p>She could not see the house, but judging by Jongdae’s orders, she knew it was almost right in front of them. Overgrown trees and their branches prevented them from seeing anything, though, which she suspected was the main reason for why the house <em>was</em> situated where it was. The vehicle had taken them the farthest it could without getting caught up between two trees. They hadn’t taken the road, <em>obviously</em>, as it would’ve made their presence known to whichever messed-up person was supposedly roaming these woods.</p><p> </p><p>So she stayed calm and focused on her mission. Jongdae had already made a couple of steps in the opposite directions, his clothes black and thick - she suspected he was boiling beneath at least three layers and long sleeves - and she turned to do the same when her voice made her stop mid-step. “Jong,” he called her by her surname, as was usually the case.</p><p> </p><p>Aeri turned to see a solemn expression on his face. “Don’t get captured.” He opened his mouth to say something else and then closed it. She knew what he’d wanted to say. <em>If you get captured, they</em><em>’ll torture the information out of you. You could endanger everyone’s safety. It’s better to die than to become a traitor</em>.</p><p> </p><p>She looked him straight in the eye and put a fisted hand onto the center of the chest. “Death before betrayal,” she said in a voice she could barely recognize. It was the voice of a junior assassin. It was the voice of a full-fledged Oh clan member.</p><p> </p><p>It seemed to be enough for her commander to be able to be able to leave her to her task. He just nodded and turned around. She stared after his slowly retreating form for a couple of seconds and then turned to walk herself. <em>Hell, what was going on? If he is worried about me getting captured, that means there isn</em><em>’t just one person here. There could be a whole mob for all I know.</em> Her thoughts spun, wondering if this was the Han clan or if they’d identified the mysterious man and this was somehow connected to him. She walked slowly, careful not to make a sound or chase the chirping birds away. Silence would alert anyone to her presence as much as sounds would, so she listened to the sounds of the woods, trying to pinpoint a place that was too silent.</p><p> </p><p>She reached her designated place - from her current position she could see the house, and <em>man, was it a mansion. </em>But there was no time for playing house, so she turned her back on the sight, standing at the edge of the cliff lookout. She tried not to wonder why her commander wasn’t already waiting for her. <em>Had he gotten lost</em>? Of course he hadn’t - the guy was ten times more capable than her, and he <em>definitely</em> had a better sense of orientation. So she tried not to think about it or about his hidden missions, and followed orders - she stayed put and waited for her commander to give her further instructions.</p><p> </p><p>She stayed alert, but focused on memorizing every single thing about the mansion that she could from that single glimpse she’d allowed herself - the number of windows and the shiny, expensive roof, even the number of chimneys. The house looked out-of-this-world, with a beautiful garden in front of it full of blooming flowers of various colors. It looked like something out of a fairytale. She wondered who took care of the garden - maybe it was Sehun’s wife?</p><p> </p><p>After several minutes passed, she allowed herself another glimpse. She was now trying to pinpoint the brand of the car that was parked in front of the house - it was red and <em>expensive</em> and she wondered why she hadn’t brought binoculars so that she could see everything properly.</p><p> </p><p>Then a scream broke out. It was a high-pitched scream of a woman that somehow seemed familiar, although she was pretty sure she’d never heard anything like it ever before. Nonetheless, goosebumps raised all over her arms and a sick feeling pooled inside of her stomach. <em>This was bad. This was very bad.</em></p><p> </p><p><em>Damn it</em>, she thought to herself. <em>Why does the universe want to get me thrown out of the clan so badly</em>?</p><p> </p><p>And instead of helping her commander, she was daydreaming of going on a picnic with the Oh family. <em>Stupid, stupid, stupid</em>.</p><p> </p><p>She struggled with deciding what to do next. Follow the orders or do the reasonable, albeit reckless, thing and go help whoever was obviously in danger?</p><p> </p><p>Jongdae would kill her if she wasn’t at the designated place when he arrived there. Then again, perhaps it was Jongdae that was in the midst of the <em>screaming</em>, and if she didn’t go over to help him, then he’d <em>kill</em> her for sure.</p><p> </p><p>She put her head in her hands.</p><p> </p><p>To hell with it.</p><p> </p><p>She wanted to meet the Oh heir.</p><p> </p><p>At least when they threw her out, she’d know whether he was as handsome as everyone said him to be.</p>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The Storage Room</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>Drop</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Aeri blinked wearily, her head dizzy. The world was spinning and she waited for it to come to a stop.</p><p> </p><p>It didn’t.</p><p> </p><p><em>Drop</em>.</p><p> </p><p>For some reason, her vision was blurry. She squeezed her eyes in an attempt to stop the little sparkles from dancing across her eyes, but the feeling that she needed to throw up remained.</p><p> </p><p>When she tried to touch her eyes with her hands, she realized she couldn’t because they were tied. <em>What in the world</em><em>…?</em></p><p> </p><p><em>Drop</em>.</p><p> </p><p>It was at that point that she realized that she was hanging upside down, and that she was tied not by strings or a tied knot, but by <em>shackles</em>.</p><p> </p><p>At that point, she also kind of realized that she was <em>way</em> in over her head. It didn’t help the least that she had no recollection of how she’d ended up in this place.</p><p> </p><p><em>Drop</em>.</p><p> </p><p>She remembered… the smell of maple woods. Her commander shouting at her - but Jongdae never lost his temper, how could that be? And what had he said - something about a <em>trap, and darn it, why do you never listen to orders, you rebellious child? </em>Something about… how they’d gotten caught and now everything was lost. She furrowed her eyebrows, trying hard to piece her memories together.</p><p> </p><p>And then a pair of rough hands around her wrists, swirling her around and pushing her into the ground. She’d had <em>so much</em> training, she’d spent countless nights kicking at the air and practicing her signature moves on poor Kyungsoo. Yet all it took to render all her powers useless was <em>strength</em>, masculine, raw strength that pushed her head into the pile of leaves on the ground, making her breathe in the scent of maple leaves that she thought would suffocate her.</p><p> </p><p><em>Drop</em>.</p><p> </p><p>The continuous sound of water drops made her already-moody self groan in annoyance. “Can somebody turn this water off already?” she growled, struggling against her restraints. She wanted to test out her captors - if they were amateurs, they were bound to come running. If there would be a ransom, they’d try to be nice towards her, and if it was a rival clan… She gulped, her body already bracing for what would probably start happening soon.</p><p> </p><p>Nothing. No answer came, which was not unexpected, and she tried to nod to herself in understanding. She knew well where she probably was and why. Being moody was <em>good </em>- the angrier she got, the harder she would make things for them. And hell, she would make things as hard as possible.</p><p> </p><p>The small, dimly lit room was not made cozy in any sense - she’d already tried to stare the water faucet down so hard that it crumbled under her gaze (which of course wasn’t working), and she did <em>not</em> like the looks of the bloody cloths and wrapped tools - she definitely recognized her knife among them. It was the knife Junmyeon gifted her after the initiation; she would not let them use it against her clan.</p><p> </p><p><em>Drop</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid,” she muttered under her breath. She knew she was probably not going to survive this, unless something very dramatic like a volcano eruption happened, distracting everyone long enough for her to bite the iron shackles until they break. <em>Very likely </em>to happen, she told herself.</p><p> </p><p>Even through the fear of being tortured, she still couldn’t shake away the image in front of her mind. Junmyeon’s grimace of disgust. She was a complete failure. There was no doubt about that. And Jongdae was completely right to be so strict to her all the time. <em>If only she</em><em>’d actually listened, instead of always making up excuses.</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>Jongdae… She didn’t dare think about what might’ve happened to him. She didn’t dare wonder if they’d kept her alive because their torture wasn’t successful. Because that would mean that her commander was…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Drop.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>She couldn’t help the tears prickling in her eyes. She would not cry, not even in front of Kyungsoo, not even in the dark of the night, and <em>especially</em> not in front of the monsters that were about to enter the room and obliterate her existence. The last time she’d cried, she was a kid that couldn’t make her muscles work in the training room. She was the failure crumpling on the floor under the hard gaze of the fire-haired commander who’d wanted her to climb the rope; over and over again he’d made her get up after she fell. She remembered the laughter of the other trainees, who’d all done it successfully. She remembered the mortification, the fear pooling in her stomach.</p><p> </p><p>She swore she would never allow herself to feel that way again. Not even if she ended up in the arms of her enemies. <em>Never again.</em></p><p> </p><p>All she could do was die with honor. That meant complete silence, or lies. She knew that she would not manage to not answer any of their insults, or not take the opportunity to insult them instead. So she’d <em>lie, lie</em> until the Oh clan was completely protected. They wanted to know where their HQ was? She’d happily lead them to the facility where the sniper shooters trained. If they asked about Sehun’s wife, she’d <em>gladly </em>tell them how in love she was with her husband, how happily they waltzed through their house and how much she loved them. She’d tell them <em>everything</em>; everything that would lead them to their demise.</p><p> </p><p><em>Drop</em>.</p><p> </p><p>She snorted. To think that she’d once dreamed of being Oh Sehun’s friend… His guard, his most loyal assassin-</p><p> </p><p>“Well, since it seems like you’re completely fine being here by yourself, I’ll make my leave.”</p><p> </p><p>Her body tensed immediately, and she attempted to focus her already weakened senses to the man in the room. The walls seemed to be darker now that he was there, as if he’d sucked the light out of the barely-working light bulb hanging over her head.</p><p> </p><p>It didn’t help the slightest bit that she recognized this man as Kris Wu, the infamous painter who’d basically gotten her into this whole mess.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Drop.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t let the fear show on her face, especially now that there was no doubt that she had been captured by the Han clan. “Of course I’m fine. I could think about that painting of a snow man and laugh for days! It’s funny what people call art nowad-”</p><p> </p><p>Kris’ hand was suddenly around her throat, squeezing slowly but with strength she’d never imagined she’d be up against. It was probably because she was already weak and dizzy, hanging upside down for God knew how much time, but still, it <em>hurt</em>. He slowly lowered his face to hers. “I think you’ve got the wrong idea here. I ain’t here to play babysitter. If you disrespect me again, I’ll cut off your tongue, you slimy rat.”</p><p> </p><p>She did not doubt his words for a second, although <em>slimy rat</em> kind of wasn’t the insult she’d expected. She resisted the urge to retort - it wasn’t worth risking not being able to talk when the opportunity arose again. She’d first study him and then make her move.</p><p> </p><p>Kris was as magnificent as they described him to be, which was excuse enough for why she thought that painting was a fake - how could such a drop-down gorgeous man oozing with self-confidence and testosterone draw something like that child’s drawing she’d seen? It was unimaginable, and she refused to think about it any further out of fear that a similar comment would make its way out of her mouth again.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Drop.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>She wondered if Kris was the man who’d knocked her down unconscious.</p><p> </p><p>A fear made confusion, anger and dread start pooling in her stomach. What if they’d killed Jongdae, and decided that she would be far more susceptible to their torture, although she could not give them all the details they wanted? What if they’d deemed torturing her commander a waste of time and resources and murdered him in cold blood?</p><p> </p><p>That blood would be on her hands, she knew, even if Kyungsoo told her a million times it was not her fault. If Jongdae was lost because of her… How could she ever live with it? A million images suddenly passed through her mind - Jongdae, who’d offered his hand to her after she’d finally managed to climb that rope. Jongdae, a small curve of his lips while he watched her shoot the target with the sniper gun after only three shots. Jongdae, his hand going through his fiery hair as he shook his head at her, telling her she wouldn’t be in trouble <em>only this time </em>for sneaking her way into the meeting of commanders. Jongdae, without the silver hairs when she’d first met him. Jongdae, with smile marks around his eyes although she’d not seen him smile more than four times in eight years.</p><p> </p><p>She suddenly felt a lump in her throat and prayed for his safety. She could be replaced, but Jongdae? He wasn’t the cold-blooded bastard he tried to make everyone believe he was. Whatever had scarred him in the past had made thick walls of concrete come up inside of his heart, but there <em>was </em>a heart somewhere in there, she knew. She wanted to live to see him come out of his shell. She wanted him to live and smile and be happy. She’d die to make that happen if it came down to it. <em>Please, be alive. Please, please just hold on until I find a way to break free.</em></p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Drop.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Kris, who was about three times as tall as her, was now sitting on an old, rusty stool he’d brought from the corner in the dark. Even upside down, she couldn’t <em>not </em>notice how amazingly styled his black hair was. He looked as if he was going to advertise clothes something, not begin sticking those wrapped up tools into her body in order to make her talk. He hadn’t even begun yet, and she was already beginning to have a hard time breathing. It felt as if her body was collapsing on her, which was not a good sign - apart from the dizziness and blurry vision, this was another thing that ensured she was not going to escape from this place. How would she run if she couldn’t feel her legs? If by the time they brought her back to the ground, her inner ear was already damaged and the blood pressure in her brain too high?</p><p> </p><p>Kris crossed his arms. A second passed. She didn’t dare breathe.</p><p> </p><p><em>Drop</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“So, you are a member of the Oh clan.”</p><p> </p><p><em>Figures</em>, she wanted to retort. As if her tattoo and presence in front of the Oh heir’s house weren’t descriptive enough. She didn’t dare open her mouth to say any of it, though.</p><p> </p><p>“And you’ve been assigned to guard Sehun, so I’d say let’s cut the bullshit and talk business, shall we?”</p><p> </p><p>Aeri gulped, remembering how his hands felt around her throat. Silence or lies, silence or lies. <em>There goes my ticket for survival</em>. Could she lie that she was one of the commanders?</p><p> </p><p>She did not fail to notice that the cloths were no longer on the sink. Or the tools of torture. Or that her knife was in his hand, his fingers caressing the seamless surface.</p><p> </p><p>That knife had never tasted blood before. She’d wanted for a long time to keep it that way forever.</p><p> </p><p><em>A rebellious child. </em>Jongdae was right to the very core. She hoped she could tell him that someday.</p><p> </p><p><em>Drop</em>.</p><p> </p><p>She expected the first slash. She expected it to sting, she expected the late feeling of fire along the skin on her arm and the dull pain. She could handle it, not shed a tear or make a sound. She resisted the urge to whimper or hiss as the fire spread along her arm.</p><p> </p><p>But she didn’t expect to see a grin on Kris’ face. She could never imagine the twisted mask that was his overjoyed expression, like she was a canvas and he wanted to slash away at her until there wasn’t a spot on her arm that wasn’t covered in blood. As if he was actually <em>enjoying </em>this. She didn’t doubt for a second that was true, seeing the glint in his eyes that promised more, <em>more</em> pain.</p><p> </p><p>They’d told her how it felt to be hurt, and how to act in order to keep her honor through it. They’d explained what tools were usually used for torture, what they targeted to make it hurt as much as possible without making a mess. They’d told her everything, yet nothing was able to prepare her for this. Because they’d never told her that the person behind the pain would not be one and the same with the person being tortured, that they wouldn’t be just another prisoner, forced to do their awful job that would haunt them forever. She’d always imagined it to be that way, fearing that someday her clan would ask her to become a torturer.</p><p> </p><p>“Why were you in my house, you piece of shit?” Kris shouted then, his words twisting into an animalistic snarl. She felt him squeezing at the gashing wound. She couldn’t help it - she gasped in pain. “You thought that you could steal from me and get away with it? That you could make a fool out of me and take my precious paintings away?”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Drop.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Perhaps a couple seconds passed. Perhaps it was hours, or even days between the time she felt a stinging flash on her cheek and another hot slash, this time along her wrist. “You still think messing with me is fun, huh?” he snarled again. Kris didn’t wait a second for her to answer - this was not an interrogation. He did not even care if she wanted to answer him; he just <em>wanted</em> to hurt her. By the time she’d realized that her cheek was stinging because the bastard had <em>slapped </em>her, he was slapping her again, this time with more force.</p><p> </p><p>Then she kind of fazed out of what was happening to her body. Another eternity passed, Kris started snarling and shouting and growling again and slashing at her arms and slapping her. She was thankful for swimming in and out of consciousness multiple times. She was thankful for not being fully aware of her body when he began plucking the nails out of her fingertips. Although everything hurt and she could feel the blood streaming out of her wounds, the blood drops falling down onto the ground and joining the cacophony of sound in the torture room, she had not said a single word about anything throughout it.</p><p> </p><p>She whimpered and gasped, yes, and even screamed once - when he plucked the first nail out of her fingertip. Kris <em>especially </em>liked that, humming in appreciation, whispering “That’s it, give it to me, give it <em>all </em>to me, this is just a little taste of what I’m going to do to you” while she squeezed her eyes shut, willing her mind out of her body again. She was able to brace herself for the second nail, so she managed to just gasp and moan brokenly through it. This earned her another slap that felt more like a punch to the cheek. She felt as if her jaw was broken.</p><p> </p><p>Most of his questions didn’t even make sense to her. “Is Sehun’s wife really pregnant? Even a servant, which you probably are, would know that in the Oh clan. They are so eager to share all news about their wretched, <em>fake </em>lives to everyone.” After each question, the slices became deeper and more painful. She’d already lost feeling in her legs and arms, but her abdomen hurt as if he was attacking her with a flamethrower, and not a knife.</p><p> </p><p>If she’d had the strength to think, she would’ve wondered why it <em>mattered</em> to him anyway. What the hell did it matter if the clan was gossiping about Sehun’s wife? So what if she was pregnant? Was it really worth all this pain? Then she realized this was exactly the path of thoughts she should <em>not </em>have - soon she’d wonder if surrendering the information was worth the pain. Soon she’d determine that <em>no, it wasn</em><em>’t</em>, and start talking like a traitor. <em>No. I will not become a traitor. I</em><em>’d rather die than do that.</em></p><p> </p><p>Kris kept going, unaware of her inner turmoil. The slashes were replaced by punches, and she began feeling like the box of sand trainees used to practice their boxing skills. She was embarrassed by the whimpers that left her mouth every now and then, but she couldn't help it - the expression on Kris’ face every time he punched her in the ribs made some primal fear kick in and leave her breathless. Or maybe it was just the punches that were kicking the breath out of her lungs.</p><p> </p><p>She wouldn't be able to hang on for much longer like this, she knew. Hanging upside down, every second making her feel more and more like throwing up, a strange buzzing constantly ringing in her head, her vision getting more and more unfocused.</p><p> </p><p>She opted for shaking her head every time he started barking questions at her. "Were you there to plant poison in my mansion?" "What do you know about Sehun's plan for overthrowing our clan?" "When are they going to attack?"</p><p> </p><p>The worst things was, she really <em>didn't know </em>any of the things he was demanding from her. She was thankful for it, because she doubted she's be able to keep herself from blurting out every single thing she knew if he continued doing this for a while longer. Not out of fear or pain, but because she felt her sanity slowly slipping away. The pressure in her head was getting unbearable. She was gasping for air, for some kind of relief, and even if Kris hadn’t been stabbing and punching and slapping her, she would’ve felt like she was being tortured due to the steady flow of blood out of her limbs and towards her brain.</p><p> </p><p>He tried again, this time twisting the knife into what appeared to be his favorite spot on her abdomen. “Where is Kim Seo Young?” he shouted. If she’d been able to move any of her muscles, she would’ve raised her eyebrows and shouted back, <em>What the hell does she have to do with any of this? </em>Why were they targeting Junmyeon’s wife all of a sudden? “Where are they keeping her?”</p><p> </p><p>She could barely see, let alone think or try to make sense of his questions by the time he decided that he’d had his fill of her <em>this time</em>. She knew there would be more, there would always be more for as long as there was life in her. This man who seemed to have been carved out of the coldest stone on the planet seemed to be draining her life force out of her and consuming it. Nothing but pain and darkness was left in his wake, and all she could do was whimper brokenly as his cold hands fleetingly grazed all her wounds, seemingly content with his work. He hummed in appreciation again, as if content with the results of his work.</p><p> </p><p>“You better start talking when I’m back,” he said right into her ear, pressing the spot just under her ribs he’d just taken the knife out of. “If you still have the ability to talk, that is. All you Oh members know how to do is break down and cry.” She didn’t doubt she looked at least as bad as she felt, which was a dying stabbed fish that was set on fire. <em>Not good</em>, a voice in her mind said. <em>This is not good.</em></p><p> </p><p>He sneered. "Look at yourself. You are a mess, and I haven't even gotten started properly yet." His voice sounded disgusted, as if she wasn't even a human but some doll he had every right to break and slice apart. "I'd suggest you start finding coherent answers to my questions before I start cutting fingers off."</p><p> </p><p>Oh, she didn’t doubt he’d love to start cutting her. It seemed like the sight of her bloody body - his artwork, as he said a couple of times - aroused him. His breathing seemed to grow ragged whenever she made a particularly painful sound, and every now and then he’d squeeze her neck, nearly taking what little breath she had away and promising how <em>amazingly he was going to rip open her veins and paint her skin with blood. </em>She knew now that he wasn’t just a sympathizer of he Han clan. <em>No</em>, he’d been a member long before he’d married their leader’s sister. It took years to acquire the knife skills he had. It took years of practice to be able to slice skin without going too deep, to make damage without killing immediately.</p><p> </p><p>“Couldn’t even dream of how much fire this little thing could light on your skin, didn’t you?” Kris smirked, touching her face with the tip of her knife. He didn’t put enough pressure into it to break skin, but the gasps she let out seemed to be what he was aiming for anyway. The knife dipped lower, first onto her neck, and then it grazed the hem of her shirt. “I’ll keep it as a trophy. To remind me of the color of your blood. I might even have a little fun with you before I slice your throat. I’d like to hear those pretty lips cry out my name before I make them <em>beg</em>.” His words made her whole body contort in disgust, trying unsuccessfully to move away from the knife and the messed-up implication he was making with it. His hands were dirtier than his words, caressing her lips gently and dipping into her mouth for a second. She wanted to throw up. There were many kinds of torture, she knew. She’d rather die than have him touch her like this.</p><p> </p><p>Aeri tried not to let the thought form in her mind, but it did anyway. <em>I am not getting out of this room alive. It</em><em>’s going to be my tomb. </em>That thought, as much as it terrified her, didn’t strike her so much because of <em>her own </em>death. No, it was Jongdae she was afraid of. When she’d woken up, she’d wanted to save <em>him</em>, but now it was clear that she wasn’t going anywhere. Her body was already giving out on her and she was barely clinging to consciousness. <em>Pathetic</em>, she could hear her commander say in her mind. <em>You couldn</em><em>’t even climb that rope - how could I expect you to withstand this? You’re a complete failure</em>. She had no strength to wince or even feel bad about herself. Her body was beginning to tingle, the pain enveloping her completely, and all she had to offer was acceptance.</p><p> </p><p>Kris seemed to think on something for a second. Then his finger caressed her cheek once again, pinching it slowly. He smiled at her, and it would’ve almost looked innocent had his husky voice permeated her ears. His hand was playing with the hem of her shirt. He let one hand run beneath it, cold fingers running down her chest. His hand paused on her bra. “Let’s try that approach when I’m back. We’ll see how strong your resolve is when I strip you naked. I wonder how you’ll sound when I-”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s enough, Kris,” a stone-cold male voice came from somewhere behind her. “The instructions were to <em>begin </em>the questioning, not have her bleed all over the storage room.” She would’ve tried to understand what he meant by <em>storage room</em>, but the next words made the breath catch in her throat. She’d thought Kris’ snarl was the most intimidating thing she would ever hear, but the snarl that came from the back of the room was worse. It was dark, full of poison and disgust. It sounded exactly how she felt. “And certainly not to <em>rape </em>her.”</p><p> </p><p>The dirty hands that were touching the top of her chest gave a final, almost possessive tug and then left her body altogether. She let out a shaky breath. Then the bastard <em>laughed</em>. “Oh come on, Baek,” he said lightheartedly, as if they were having tea and not torturing her. “I was just having a little fun here. I assure you, if I’d wanted to fuck her, I would’ve had her set up in a <em>very </em>different position.” The sound of approval he made left her squeezing her eyes shut again although she couldn’t even see anything through her salty eyes anymore. She turned her head away in shame, as if what he was talking about had already happened and she was forever disgraced, forever branded by this sick psychopath. What had she done to deserve this? She didn’t doubt Kris would stay true to his words if given the chance. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. She’d intimidate him until he killed her, she determined. She would do it as soon as possible, before he had a chance to bring whatever messed up sexual fantasy he had in his mind to life.</p><p> </p><p>“Get the fuck out of here,” the man - Baek, whoever that was - growled. “You’re no longer in charge. Don’t look at me like that - Lu gave the orders, not me. I have <em>much more important stuff </em>to do than play house here. What you’re doing is disgusting, though. Look at her, you sick bastard!”</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t hear Kris’ response, if there was any. She didn’t hear him walk out of the room. In fact, she couldn’t hear anything - the buzzing in her ears was too loud. She could no longer keep her eyes open or breathe - she let herself sag against her restraints, her muscles aching and head spinning. She imagined she was in the tech room, untangling Kyungsoo’s hands from the wires. It was the most peaceful place she could think of, and she hoped it would make her feel safe. She tried to remember the scent of barbecue in his hair, the sound of his laughter, the feel of his arms around her as he hugged her.</p><p> </p><p>She couldn’t remember it. All she could smell was maple, all she could hear was the buzzing of blood in her head, all she could feel was the fire Kris had lighted all over her body. She was one with the pain, burning in the bonfire of stabs, slashes and punches. She wished she didn’t remember his suggestive touches, but it was all she could feel on her body. She felt <em>dirty</em>. She wanted to die. At least she could still go honorably, if she let go now.</p><p> </p><p>The scent of maple carried her to a place without pain and she let herself drift off to unconsciousness, if even for a short moment.</p><p> </p><p>She could swear that no longer than five seconds passed when she heard a voice call out to her.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey.”</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, you.” The voice was soft and rich, and it eerily reminded her of someone. She’d heard the voice before, she was sure of it.</p><p> </p><p>She felt someone shaking her, and she untangled herself from unconsciousness quickly, years of training kicking in and the strict routine of getting up at 5 AM every day for years finally paying off.</p><p> </p><p>Not that it mattered much - all she could do was groan as she lifted her shaking hands to her face. Her fingers were tingling, but she <em>could </em>move them, which was much better than she had hoped for. She was able to open her eyes, although even her eyelids hurt from the high blood pressure she’d endured. She lightly touched her jaw, which she earlier suspected to be broken, but she was able to move it around without problems. <em>Thank God, it had endured</em>.</p><p> </p><p>She was no longer hanging upside down from the ceiling. She still felt the blood gushing out of wounds all over her body and the ache from having been repeatedly punched, but at least she was no longer shackled. She could <em>move</em> her hands and legs, and the world was no longer spinning. Well, at least it wasn’t spinning <em>badly</em>, although she felt as if she was being rocked on a boat. Her eyes were able to focus on a single spot at the floor, which was also a good sign. Perhaps she could regain her balance through time. Perhaps nothing was permanently damaged. At least not <em>just yet</em>.</p><p> </p><p>"Uhm, you okay in there? Should I give you more painkillers?" the voice said, and she groggily opened her eyes again. Her vision was still impaired, but it was clear that someone was in front of her, waving hands in front of her eyes as if to check whether she could respond. She waited for her blurry vision to focus so that she could see who exactly stood - or crouched - in front of her.</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t make the same mistake as when she’d lashed out at Kris after his initial comment. She opted to stay silent this time, remembering very well that she wasn't home and that each and every one of these people wanted her dead. This was some facility of the Han clan, and she was a prisoner who was undergoing torture. She knew the protocols very well - after a while of torture, she would be nurtured back to health just to have it taken away from her once again in the next session of torture.</p><p> </p><p>So these were the <em>good cops</em>, and if they didn't get what they wanted from her, Kris would come back - that much she knew for sure. And the things Kris had implied, the things he would do to her if he got the chance…</p><p> </p><p>She shuddered, remembering the sadistic satisfaction in his eyes and his ragged breathing when he’d gotten her to whimper and moan brokenly, and how it could get so much worse than that. How jarring the tip of her own knife into her rib was nothing compared to what he had in store for her.</p><p> </p><p>The man cleared his throat, as if running out of patience, and she decided to try to assess the situation before it changed again. There was a man in front of her, crouching in front of a chair - the same chair Kris had been sitting on cockily just a short while ago.</p><p> </p><p>She glanced down at herself, at her torn shirt, at the bloody pants. She couldn't see much beyond silhouettes and colors, but the blackness all over her arms didn't look that promising. The fact that she couldn't quite move her legs didn't help matters either. And the metallic smell of blood in the air only made her stomach pulse. If there had been anything to throw up, she would’ve done it unceremoniously a while ago, but her stomach was empty.</p><p> </p><p>"Uhm, hi," the man said in that familiar voice. Her mind spun with questions. Did he enjoy this like Kris did? Or was he one of those who just detached themselves from their job, like Aeri preferred to do? She’d never witnessed anything like this in her life. She’d never heard of such torture - of it being anything than means of getting information. But Kris didn’t care about her answers - it was just an excuse for his sick preferences and hidden desires to hurt people.</p><p> </p><p>She could not make out the exact expression on the face of the man in front of her, but she decided to study him for a moment.</p><p> </p><p>He looked like an old man in a young boy's body - as if he'd aged too fast for someone looking like they've just graduated from high school. His face was spotless and creaseless, his eye and hair color warm and light, but the way he wore his expressions indicated that on the inside, he was anything but. His hair was parted at the middle, and it fanned out his face like a curtain. It came down to his ears, and looked incredibly soft. How could someone who looked this innocent be part of this group of sadistic torturers? Was he going to hurt her too and enjoy it?</p><p> </p><p>She looked into his eyes to try to find out, and they returned the gaze fearlessly. Where had she seen those eyes before? Why did they look kind of familiar too? She did not blink or move her gaze away from the mysterious man. He remained a statue, the only proof that he was alive the vibrant color of his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>The smell of maples was coming from him, she realized. She hated herself for not being able to loathe it, to loathe <em>him </em>for wearing it whilst torturing her. The smell calmed her, made her remember the world outside of the torture room, what she was sworn to protect, what she had to lose. It fit his face perfectly. It didn’t belong in this place where pain resided.</p><p> </p><p>And then the pieces seemed to come together. She was finally able to see the solution of the puzzle. As if a light switch was flipped on, she knew who the man in front of her was. She <em>had </em>seen him before - those eyes, that pleasant voice…</p><p> </p><p>"You!" she gasped. She couldn't help it - though she'd vowed not to say a word until she either escaped or died, this situation was becoming too much for her. On top of getting caught by the Han clan, having been tortured by Kris Wu, a supposed sympathizer of the clan who turned out to be their <em>freaking assigned interrogator</em>, she now had to endure this too. Why was everything so entangled? Why were all the dots connected?</p><p> </p><p>Those eyes belonged to the man whom she'd encountered in Kris’ mansion. The man who'd told her it was a decoy and showed her the China vase.</p><p> </p><p>Who'd said he had nothing to do with mafia clans.</p><p> </p><p>"You've ruined my life!" she screeched. It took all her willpower not to get up and strangle him with her own hands, so she opted to growl and ball her hands into fists instead. She did not want for Kris to come back, and she also kind of doubted she would’ve been able to get up or hit anything with her bleary eyes anyway.</p><p> </p><p>The man-boy frowned. "I'm sorry, what?”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Mundus vult decipi</em>,” she spat at him. <em>No getting out of this situation, you dirty snitch. You</em><em>’re busted.</em> “I saw it. I know who you are!” She couldn’t help the tone of her voice or how poisonous it sounded. He’d betrayed her, lied to her, made her look like a fool, stole the prize of her weeks-long effort and smiled at her as if he was her <em>friend</em>. She almost scoffed at herself. <em>Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid</em>.</p><p> </p><p>The man froze. <em>Gotcha!</em> she thought to herself proudly. She shut the voice inside of her which was already wondering what this meant, why a Han clan member hadn’t killed her after catching her in his superior’s mansion, if he was actually an assassin, why he’d lied to her instead of confronting her… The situation was now ten times more complicated, but she doubted he’d explain his master plan to her if she just asked nicely.</p><p> </p><p>She was prepared for him to take out a blade and cut her throat. To hit her and make her fall on the ground. To laugh at her maniacally and say that yes, indeed it was him, and now she was going to pay for zapping him like the worthless Oh clan member they all saw her as. Perhaps he’d take over Kris’ torture and especially enjoy twisting his knife in her abdomen. Perhaps he’d continue where Kris left off. Whatever he chose to do, she knew it wouldn’t be anything that would benefit her. All that awaited her was more pain. Did it matter who the person behind the blade was?</p><p> </p><p>Then the man she hated with her whole being did the one thing she was not prepared for.</p><p> </p><p>He smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh,” he said in a pleasant voice. “You must mean Baekhyun. I’m sorry for my brother. I know he can be a bit…” He scratched his neck as he looked away from her. “...Difficult.”</p><p> </p><p>She stared at him as if he’d just told her aliens have landed on Earth. <em>Brother? </em>He stared back at her for a second, his grin getting wider and wider. She didn’t get the joke, and that seemed to make it even funnier for him.</p><p> </p><p>He must’ve seen the confused look in her eyes, because he <em>giggled</em>. The man crouching in a torture room in front of a bloody prisoner who’d just endured a session of torture from Kris Wu <em>giggled</em>, and raised up his sleeves.</p><p> </p><p>The tattoo was not there.</p><p> </p><p>“See? I’m not him. I’m his brother. He’s two years older than me, but we have the same facial features, so we get mixed up often. My name is Baekbeom, and I apologize for my brother’s acts towards you. I hope he didn’t do anything very bad and unforgivable, though.”</p><p> </p><p>A part of her had felt more comfortable when she was hanging upside down. She then knew what was happening, what she could expect, how she could act. Now, she had no idea <em>what in the hell was going on </em>and was halfway intent on voicing her jumbled thoughts. So the mysterious man, Baekhyun and this… Baekbeom weren’t twins, but they shared the same pair of eyes - eyes that were watching her intently now.</p><p> </p><p>A fleeting thought appeared in her mind - the man who’d come to the room and chased Kris away… Kris had called him <em>Baek</em>. She remembered the cold voice, the snarling, the swearing, the firm attitude towards the psychopath in the room. <em>Had that been Baekhyun?</em></p><p> </p><p>When Baekbeom stood up and offered a hand to her with an impossibly honest grin, his hand ruffling his hair and making stray bangs fall over his forehead, she felt as if her mind had been wiped clean.</p><p> </p><p><em>I am a prisoner</em>, she almost wanted to shout. <em>What the hell are you being nice for? You think I</em><em>’m going to fall for it? </em>But then she remembered Kris, and his promises of <em>more</em>. She didn’t know if this guy was playing a game with her. He most certainly was, probably attempting to gain her trust and get the information they needed this way. Or perhaps this was just a short break before Kris would come back again to truly torture  and break her. She shuddered again, not wanting to think about Kris right now. She would deal with that later.</p><p> </p><p>She looked up at Baekbeom, searching for something. She tried to compare his grin to the one plastered on Kris’ face while he’d tortured her. She noted the perfect white teeth, the thin light pink lips, the fair skin. Then her gaze came back to his eyes and hair, that light brown color that somehow seemed to radiate something under the yellow light of the lamp. He didn’t look like an interrogator. Hell, he didn’t even look like a mafia clan member at all, the only evidence against that the small tattoo on his neck. She wanted to trust him, but she knew she couldn’t - he was just another one of them. Perhaps much worse than Kris but in his own way.</p><p> </p><p>Baekbeom raised his head, having completed looking over her bloody body, and looked straight into her eyes. The smell of maples surrounded her again, and she… somehow, ridiculously, she began to feel safe. This man would not hurt her. He was nothing like the assassin she’d encountered in Kris’ mansion.</p><p> </p><p>Yeah, they did have the same eyes, but now that she thought about it… That face, those hands, that posture, they were not of an assassin. This guy was obviously someone who spent all his time holed up in a library and reading books. His skin tan was too white, his eyes too bright. Although there was an aura about him that promised he’d seen his share of awfulness and earned his fair share of nightmares, he didn’t look like someone who’d enjoy hurting others.</p><p> </p><p>He nodded at her. “It’s okay,” he whispered, as if the words hadn’t left his mouth intentionally. As if he’d thought them and couldn’t help but voice the calming words. “It’s over. Kris is not coming back.”</p><p> </p><p>She gulped. She didn’t trust this man, of course. But if his presence would keep Kris away? Hell, she’d take him over that sadistic bastard any day. She knew she was moving from one nest of snakes to another, but what choice did she have? Act like a child and turn her head from him, refusing his help? Wait for Kris to come back? Try to escape by walking through the room like a drunk?</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t have a choice, she knew. So she did the smartest thing she could think of - she took his hand, never breaking their connected gazes. Searching again for a sign of amusement, a sign of sadistic fantasies, of pain and coldness. She found none, instead being welcomed by maple woods in October. She could almost imagine the glint of sun on wet fallen maple leaves, and if it hadn’t reminded her of being pushed into the ground when she and Jongdae had been kidnapped, she would’ve held his gaze for longer.</p><p><br/>But remembering Jongdae was too much for Aeri, so she turned her gaze to the ground and tried to take a deep breath. She failed, her chest constricting from the pain around halfway through the breath and making her launch into a fit of coughing. It seemed like she’d really received painkillers, because the pain was gradually becoming duller. It was still there, but it felt less as if it was jabbing at her insides and more like an old untreated injury that hurt just occasionally. The pain was bearable.</p><p> </p><p>As she got up, the whole world shifted and the boat she’d been rocked on turned upside down, flopping into the water. Her sense of balance failed to keep her upright, and she began to fall. Baekbeom caught her easily when her legs gave out on her, his grip tight on the backs of her legs and on her neck as he cradled her to his chest. The maple scent grew stronger - did this guy live in a tree house or something? “Kris will not like this, but he can go to hell for all I care. Let’s get you to the infirmary, miss…”</p><p> </p><p>After a couple of seconds of silence, she realized Baekbeom was waiting for an answer. He began walking steadily through the room. She wanted to shout at him desperately to <em>hurry, get me out of there and not let anyone ever bring me back into this room</em>, but she kept her mouth shut for a change.</p><p> </p><p>“Aeri,” she whispered. “Jong Aeri of the Oh clan.” She didn’t say what her position in the clan was - she’d initially wanted to tell them she was a commander, but she now knew they’d never believe her. She was too young for that, and probably didn’t look the least bit as intimidating or commanding as Jongdae did. She’d never pull off such a big, fat lie.</p><p> </p><p>“Aeri,” Baekbeom repeated, his arms tightening around her body. He balanced her in one arm, leaning her into his body as he opened the door to the torture room with the other and stepped outside. “I’m incredibly glad to meet you, miss Aeri. Don’t worry - the worst has passed. You’re not going back into that room.”</p><p> </p><p>She resisted the urge to snort. Yes, she looked too young and inexperienced to be able to pass as an Oh clan commander, but this guy looked far too young and innocent to pass as someone with <em>any </em>authority in the Han clan. <em>Yeah, sure thing, buttercup</em>, she retorted in her mind. <em>You could also ask them all to disband the mafia clan and start working as bartenders or something. I</em><em>’m sure they’d listen to you</em>.</p><p> </p><p>And although she hadn’t said a word, Baekbeom stopped walking and looked down at her again, grinning from ear to ear, as if he could hear her thoughts, which she knew was impossible. Her retort was probably written on her face, though. His voice was barely a whisper, a soft caress on the top of her head, ruffling her hair. “Welcome to my home.”</p><p> </p><p>As he carried her into the hallway, something constricted inside of her chest. It was enough to be one step away from finding the older brother, Baekhyun, to strangle him and get back at him for having double-crossed her like he had. Now on top of that, she had to deal with the younger brother, who seemed to be a completely innocent princess.</p><p> </p><p>Everyone was a player, a puzzle piece with a purpose in the larger image of the Han clan. Even this guy, no matter how innocent and disconnected from the mafia he seemed.</p><p> </p><p>But not everyone was a deceiver. Not everyone was a sadist who lived for pained sounds and the sight of blood. Getting close to Baekbeom could benefit her in more ways than one, if she played her cards right. For starters, she needed protection from Kris. She would work on it from there, but for now it was enough. Even without the health care, just being away from the torturer would be enough.</p><p> </p><p>If Baekbeom was a softie, though, she knew what game she would need to play and how she’d do it. And she’d do it more perfectly than at any practice course. She’d break free and make them all <em>hurt </em>for everything they’d done to her and her clan. And Jongdae.</p><p> </p><p>So she forced herself to muster up her pleasant voice, hoping it wouldn’t break. “Thank you,” she said into his chest. He didn’t stop walking through the dark hallway, but when she glanced up, she saw the corner of a smile on his face.</p><p> </p><p><em>Hold on, Jongdae</em>, she said in her mind. <em>I</em><em>’m coming for you</em>.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Imprisonment</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Aeri had first joined the Oh clan, she was a frightened child that didn’t know how to swim, and couldn’t find anyone to hold onto while she figured out how to do it on her own. As a trainee, she had been assigned to commander Jongdae, who’d always acted harsh towards her and never let her slack off for even a moment, just because she was female. For a while, she’d thought it was just <em>her </em>he hated, not women in general.<br/><br/></p><p>At first, she’d wondered why he would make her run more laps and lift more weights, often snorting upon walking by her sweaty, messy form as she tried to do what the sadistic commander wanted from her. Sometimes he’d bark out an insult at her, like “You’re weaker than my grandmother, Jong” or “Jong, a snail would do this quicker than you”. She didn’t let any of it get to her; she’d breathe in, breathe out, and tell herself <em>just one more day and the training will be complete</em>. And then she'd do it again tomorrow.</p><p> </p><p>Ironically enough, she wasn’t Jongdae’s only target. For a while, she didn’t get the whole <em>nickname </em>thing - why all the commanders had two names and why they were expected the novices to have them too. Then one day, she muttered to herself, <em>No wonder Chen is called Jongdae - he</em><em>’s like two stuck-up commanders in one person</em>, and heard a soft laughter next to herself.</p><p> </p><p>Had she not turned around that day, she probably would’ve ended up hanging out with Soo anyway, because they were <em>so much alike </em>that she sometimes wondered if he was her lost brother. Still, she liked to think that the story of how they met was something very special and inspiring, and that it was <em>destiny </em>for them to start hanging out that particular day. Well, the story could be considered inspiring if you took out the part where Soo almost broke an arm trying to do a simple push-up and Aeri thinking Jongdae was going to kill them for slacking off.</p><p> </p><p>For some reason, she kept thinking about the moment she first met Kyungsoo as sat on a bed in what looked like the ambulance room. This room had nothing in common with the torture room - it was full of light. One whole side of the wall opposite to the bed was windowed, with bright red curtains framing the large portal. Outside was a sunny day, which was enough to make her wonder how much time had truly passed since the abduction. But that was not what took her breath away.</p><p> </p><p>From the moment the first round of torture ended, she kept suspecting that it was some kind of trick, and that they would actually be taking her to another torture room where they would pump up their game. But when she first saw the ambulance room whilst still being cradled in Baekbeom’s arms, she couldn’t help but gasp in astonishment.</p><p> </p><p>The landscape was… <em>beautiful </em>didn’t even begin to cover what it did to her heart. The whole world was colored in red. It was August, not October, but the leaves of the trees in the woods in front of her were bright red as if it was autumn. She felt as if she was watching an eternal sunset, which in turn made her feel warm and giddy. That sight matched the smell radiating off the body of the man who’d set her down onto the bed a minute ago and who was now rummaging through the closet and taking various first-aid bandages and bottles to treat her wounds. It matched the way he looked - Baekbeom had called this place his <em>home</em>, and she didn’t doubt for a second he knew those woods like the back of his hands.</p><p> </p><p>She sat on the bed in the most protective position she could bring her body to make, hugging her knees with her arms and ignoring the fact that everything hurt. All she could do was close her eyes and listen to the sound of the birds’ chirping through the opened windows as the sun’s rays warmed her skin. She felt as if she was somewhere else, in some other life that didn’t include the mafia. For a second, she was able to pretend Kris had never touched her skin, had never whispered into her ear what he’d do to her the next time, had never dipped his hands below the hem of her shirt…</p><p> </p><p>Baekbeom’s soft voice permeated her thoughts. “Hey.”</p><p> </p><p>She blinked, and noticed that there was a plate with rice and vegetables in Baekbeom’s hands in front of her. His facial expression was filled with understanding, as if he somehow knew where her mind had been in the past few moments. She again wondered whether her face had  betrayed her feelings. “You hadn’t eaten in a while, so I brought you this. I would’ve brought something more appealing, but I wasn’t sure if it would make you throw up. So let’s try this for now.”</p><p> </p><p>She also noted how she was now wrapped up in a blanket. Had she actually dozed off on the bed while he went to get the food? She scowled, suddenly angry at herself. She was supposed to be a damn professional! How would she ever escape this place if she wasn’t even able to keep herself awake?</p><p> </p><p>Yet again, Baekbeom seemed to know what she was thinking. “You’ve been through a lot,” he said softly as he took her hands in his and nudged her to sit. Her hands began tingling and she resisted the urge to flinch and break away from the uncomfortable contact.</p><p> </p><p>A second later, his hands let go of her and he grabbed the plate with food from the desk behind him, putting it into her lap. “It’s only normal that you’re tired. I promise I’ll leave as soon as you’ve eaten and I’ve treated your wounds. Then you can try and get some rest.”</p><p> </p><p>She couldn’t help herself - she scoffed. “Yeah, and I’ll dream of unicorns and rainbows.” Her voice sounded much more sarcastic and angry than she’d wanted it to, but she suspected that all the dams and shields she’d had were broken and sliced apart by Kris - now she was all raw bone and meat, without much pretense and hospitality.</p><p> </p><p>Baekbeom turned around to grab gauze and a bottle of ethanol from the desk, but she saw the scowl on his face lingering for a second. When he turned around again, it was already gone, replaced by a frown. “I… My brother, he told me about what happened back there. I know it won’t mean anything to you, but he asked Lu to let him handle it as soon as he found out you’ve been brought here. We don’t… We don’t do <em>that</em>.” He pointed at the bloody marks crisscrossing her left arm.</p><p> </p><p>Aeri was holding her breath as he talked. The junior assassin of the Oh clan inside of her told her that these were all <em>lies, he is lying to you, he is trying to brainwash you and win over your trust</em>. And it did make sense, but she once again remembered how that voice - Baekhyun’s voice - had chased Kris away and barked out how he wasn’t in charge anymore, how what he was doing to her was sick. And now his brother was treating her wounds and being nice to her. Yes, it was all probably an act, but she’d take this kind of torture over Kris doing what he wanted to her any day.</p><p> </p><p>She looked up at Baekbeom while he cleaned her wounds, forcing herself not to flinch while hissing pain spread all over her arms and face. He kept changing gauze after gauze, red from dried and fresh blood he was cleaning off her skin. His hair kept falling into his face, and she resisted the urge to move it out of his eyes. She watched intently as his eyes darkened and another, deeper scowl spread on his face while his hands tried to make the best of what Kris had done to her. “How could they let him do this to you?” he said in such a low voice that she barely heard him.</p><p><br/>“Thank you,” she said when he moved away from her for a second. He stayed still, so she raised an eyebrow at him. “Done already?”</p><p> </p><p>“Uhm…” he said, once again scratching his neck. Heat flared on his cheeks. “I… You’ll need to take the shirt off. So I can clean the wounds there.”</p><p> </p><p>“No,” she said almost involuntarily as he attempted to clean the wounds on her right hand. It was instinctual, of course, because she did <em>not </em>take her shirt off in front of just anyone. But the truth was, she was a fully trained mafia gang assassin, and of course she’d come across various types of situations through her trainee days. Of course she’d had injuries in areas on her stomach, lower back and thighs. And of course she’d trusted people like Junmyeon, Kyungsoo or even Jongdae to treat those injuries on-site without making a fuss about it.</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t about <em>that</em>, about showing skin, about having someone see her scars or be able to gaze at her body. It was about <em>Kris</em> and how just thinking about having someone <em>touch </em>anything beneath the hem of her shirt made her want to throw up.</p><p> </p><p>Baek’s eyes were dark. Once again, she remembered her first impression of him, how he looked like an old soul put into a young man’s body. The emotion that she saw swirling inside of his irises was something that only dark experiences, unforgettable memories and a sense of revenge could awaken in someone. It was something she’d spent years studying, having the opportunity to see it awaken in her commander’s eyes every time Kim Junmyeon and Kim Seo Young passed by him, holding hands and laughing.</p><p> </p><p>She just sat there, barely realizing that both of her hands were clutching the hem of her shirt tightly, ready to fight him, ready to fight <em>Kris</em>, to keep her honor intact or die trying. <em>She would rather die than let it happen to her</em>, she kept chanting in her mind, while he stood there like a statue in front of her, his head tilted downward and gazing at her body, at her hands, at her expression, at whatever emotion was showing in her eyes, her breath hitched, her muscles straining although her arms were burning from having ethanol applied to the wounds.</p><p> </p><p>Then in a flash, all of it was gone. The bright boy was back in the blink of an eye, smiling at her fondly as he nodded at her. “Okay,” he said softly, turning around once again to get more gauze to wrap around her right arm. “I’ll finish treating your arms and legs, and bring you some ice to apply on your face. I suspect there’ll be a bruise on your left cheek tomorrow.” His eyebrows were pushed tight together as he turned back, working on her right arm while her body slowly relaxed. “I’ll leave you the supplies so that you can treat the rest yourself. Judging by the bloody stain on your shirt, there’s a somewhat deep wound on your stomach. If it’s too deep, you’ll need stitches.” He gulped. “I won’t… I won’t touch you. You can tell me and I’ll call for someone else. I think Tao knows how to stitch a wound together. Just don’t hide any injuries; if they get infected or the bleeding doesn’t stop, you’ll need to go to a hospital and you know that…”</p><p> </p><p>He trailed off, but she knew what the end of that sentence was, anyway. <em>Of course</em>. Nobody would ever let her go to a hospital. It was obvious that she’d been put through torture, and just identifying her would bring the cops, because there was an arrest warrant for her from a couple of years ago, when she’d gotten sloppy on a trainee mission. Even worse, identifying her would alert her clan and they’d come to claim her, effectively ending her imprisonment, so of course bringing her to a hospital was out of the question. If she wanted to heal, she needed to get taken care of quickly, before the risks increased.</p><p> </p><p>Although it was completely irrational, she felt the urge to reassure him it wasn’t <em>him </em>that was bothering her, but the idea of having someone touch her body in any way so soon after having a sadist imply he was going to strip her naked. She gulped, swallowing down the first instinctual response that came to mind. “Thank you. I’ll reach out if I need anything.” She kept her voice calm, even as she felt anything but at the moment. Kris’ words started repeating in her mind again, and she couldn’t bring herself to be hostile towards this man, even as she should’ve been able to bring herself to tell him to <em>buzz off </em>and stop pretending he was her friend.</p><p> </p><p>She let him work in silence as she chewed the meal, feeling hungry but not wanting to rush herself. After all, she’d been hanging upside down for far too long for her sense of balance to stay intact; the last thing she needed now was to start throwing up and slow down her recovery.</p><p> </p><p>When her arms and legs were disinfected, bandaged and wrapped in gauzes, and the empty plate of food was in his hands, Baekbeom nodded at her slightly and looked at her again. His eyes looked like molten honey, something vibrant and alive constantly shifting inside of his irises. He took a deep breath, and she suddenly wondered if he was actually nervous or uncomfortable with the whole ordeal. “Okay, so… I guess you should rest now.” He scratched the back of his head, looking over at the portal and then glancing back at her. “Uhm, you treat the rest of your wounds and try to get some sleep. I’ll be back in a couple of hours to check on you.”</p><p> </p><p>She nodded at him and shifted on the bed, moving as if to lie down and get some rest. She caught him nodding at himself from the corner of her vision and then he silently made his retreat, walking awkwardly through the room and closing the door behind him. She heard the sound of a lock and snorted to herself immediately. <em>So much for the friendly act.</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>She hadn’t expected anything else than imprisonment, of course, but Jong Aeri was not someone who could be scared off by something as mundane as a lock. Her lock-picking skills were acquired thanks to the help of another dear friend, Kim Jongin, who was a couple of years older than her and seemingly set to make her moral codex as shady as possible. It didn’t work most of the time, but she <em>had</em> smoked her first cigarette and sneaked out of the HQ compound after curfew due to his persuasion. <em>Jongin, if you can hear me, thank you so much</em>, she whispered in her mind. <em>Bad influences can be useful too</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Aeri had expected to be cuffed, but they’d probably figured her current state of health wasn’t even good enough to walk, making the cuffing process pointless and therefore unnecessary. She feared their judgment was probably right, and she’d get up as soon as possible to try and assess the state her body was in. First, she needed to disinfect and wrap up the rib wound from the knife, though. It was like hot charcoal, seemingly burning through her skin and she needed to see how bad it was for herself. Baekbeom had been right about everything, and she hated to admit to herself that she would’ve liked for him to have treated the wound, but things were the way they were. So she sighed and got to work.</p><p> </p><p>She slowly lay down on the bed, her muscles hurting from the unnatural position she’d previously been in for too long. She stretched, feeling her small wounds come to life and burn for a second, but it wasn’t anything unbearable. She felt like a mummy, all wrapped up in gauzes and clumsy with her movements.</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t lift her shirt and start immediately inspecting the wound. Instead, she sighed again, attempting to plan her next moves. If she was well enough, she would scan the building during the night, figuring out where the guards were, whether there were security cameras and perhaps even where Jongdae was. Having him by her side would make everything <em>so much easier </em>for her. But of course, she couldn’t count on him or his help. Perhaps they hadn’t caught him at all. Perhaps he wasn’t even conscious or couldn’t walk. And perhaps…</p><p> </p><p>She sighed for the third time, suddenly very tired. She knew she didn’t have time - even tomorrow could be too late. She also knew that in her current state she wouldn’t be able to run, that she would most certainly get caught and that it would only make her position worse, <em>a lot </em>worse than before. So she would have to bide her time, giving herself at least two days before attempting an escape. Perhaps she’d even figure out how to fry the security system and block the guards during that time.</p><p> </p><p>Closing her eyes just for a second as she leaned on her healthy side, she felt the burning of red behind her eyes. The maple trees were beautiful, and she wanted to get out and get lost in the woods, taking her time exploring and admiring the gift of nature. And the smell, it reminded her of…</p><p> </p><p>Darker brown eyes, also shimmering with light, with a familiar spark that she saw in his brother’s eyes. A deceiver, a trickster, dark as the night and swift as the blade Junmyeon had gifted her. She remembered the way he’d growled at Kris, the same way as when he’d surprised her in Kris’ mansion, demanding to know who she was. If she’d told him, would he have let her go? Would anything have changed?</p><p> </p><p>When she opened her eyes again, the sun’s rays were coming lower through the leaves, the light creating strange shadows on the walls. She inhaled sharply, feeling a hissing pain at her injured side. She rolled up her shirt to see a jabbed hole dark at its center and crimson red around the sides. A bit of blood was still smeared around it, probably from the knife exiting her skin. Kris had stabbed her only with the very tip of the knife, so it wasn’t very deep, but the dark color looked unsettling. Plus, it <em>hurt</em>. Aeri knew she’d developed a high tolerance of pain, so she knew this wasn’t something to be just dismissed like that. She moaned in pain as she touched the tender place just below her ribcage, not wanting to wonder why this seemed to be Kris’ favorite spot.</p><p> </p><p>A growl stopped her in her tracks. For a moment, she froze, her eyes wide as she tried to register that there was someone in the room next to her, smelling of summer and earth and <em>maple</em>. The next moment, she was hastily pushing her shirt down, intent on brushing the wound off as if it was nothing. <em>She would keep her honor, she would not let them touch her-</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>Hands firmly wrapped around her wrists, and she recognized them just from the familiar ache. She knew well who they belonged to, and as they stopped her from slipping her shirt down, she didn’t need to gaze down to see the tattoo peeking from his shirt sleeve. She should’ve put up an effort to shake him off, but her useless mind kept chanting how he was <em>so close </em>and <em>he had made Kris go away </em>and <em>he smelled like maple, he smelled like the outside, he smelled like her outdoor missions, he was one of her kind</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“When the hell were you going to call for someone to put stitches on that?” The angry voice barked at her, and she couldn’t help but wince from the close proximity of Baekhyun. It ignited something in her, made her wrists tingle where he was holding them pinned to her sides and her breath hitch as if she was running from something. “Oh wait, let me take a guess - you <em>weren</em><em>’t</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>His voice was so full of venom that she couldn’t help but look up, if only to see how his sculpture-like face looked like contorted in rage. But when she looked up, it wasn’t rage that she found; it was an unreadable expression somewhere between annoyance and worry. She quickly ruled out the other feeling because <em>yeah, sure, this guy was sooooo worried about her</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s not that deep,” she found herself saying blandly whilst still looking at him. She knew her excuse was lame at best, but she didn’t want to explain how she couldn’t handle having someone touch her body. His fierce, murky eyes stared straight back at her, as if offering a challenge to see who would break first. “It doesn’t need stitches. I’ll just disinfect it, put some ointment onto it and wrap it up. I don’t need help.”</p><p> </p><p>She expected him to bark out orders at her, to say he didn’t care what she wanted and to start stitching the wound himself, but he didn’t. After a long moment during which her skin grew warmer and her embarrassment stronger, he crossed his arms on his chest and nodded at her. She struggled to focus on his voice instead of on the flexing muscles on his arms. “Alright.”</p><p> </p><p>After that, he seemingly decided to play a statue. She rushed to pull her shirt down, to prevent him from seeing any more of her body, to change her awkward position. She sat up and frowned at him. “Are you going to stand there and… guard me or something?”</p><p> </p><p>He snorted, seemingly in annoyance, but she didn’t miss the slight curve of one corner of his mouth upwards. “I’m not here to babysit you. We have a lot to talk about, so hurry up with patching the wound up, since you don’t need any help. <em>Obviously</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>Her frown grew larger. <em>He</em><em>’s going to watch me while I treat my wound? What kind of a freak is this guy? </em>Even so, she couldn’t help but feel mortified when thinking she was going to have to pull her shirt up again in his presence. “Could you like… turn around or something? Give a girl her privacy?”</p><p> </p><p>Baekhyun rolled his eyes and pulled his hand through his perfectly styled hair. The scent of maples once again permeated the air. “Hurry up,” he said and slowly made his way towards the portal of windows. He had the decency to turn his back towards her, and for a long moment of suspension, she kept staring at his back. At his white button-up shirt with a black line through the center, where the buttons are located, and his tight leather pants. At the hands which were behind his back, the obvious knife hidden in his calf, the outline of a gun at the waistband of the pants, the tight stance of a fully trained mafia clan assassin. How had she not noticed any of these things that night in Kris’ mansion?</p><p> </p><p>Her mind wandering, she let some of her thoughts out. “Why didn’t you try to kill me at Kris’ mansion?” She simultaneously waited for him to answer and lifted her shirt, beginning to work on the wound. First, clean it with ethanol-soaked gauze. The blood was still flowing, so the gauze quickly turned red. She winced, but didn’t make a sound as she worked.</p><p> </p><p>“I wasn’t sure who you were,” he muttered after a long moment. She grabbed the paste of ointment from the table and started to apply it onto the now clean wound. “You could’ve been an assassin who’d already set up a trap. I needed to see whether I should question you or get rid of you.”</p><p> </p><p>He spoke in a matter-of-fact voice and she nodded, because it was reasonable. She now understood why they were so worried about people attempting to kill Kris - perhaps she’d join the Kris Haters Club when she got out of this whole mess. <em>If </em>she ever got out of it. Ointment applied, she now needed to wrap the gauze around her torso. Due to the fact that her arms began to hurt badly when she attempted to reach around her back, that proved to be harder than she expected. The gauze fell out of her hands and onto the floor. She bit her lip, wincing at the pain as she leaned down to pick it up. “Why did Luhan put you in charge of my interrogation instead of Kris?”</p><p> </p><p>As she sat back up, she found herself looking straight at Baekhyun’s annoyed expression again. His patience seemed to have run out. He took the gauze from her hands and began wrapping it around her swiftly. She felt her cheeks flaring up from his proximity and her indecency. “Because nobody likes his methods of interrogation. Nobody approves of torture. If it was necessary, yes, but not as a way of welcome to our clan headquarters. He’d slice your face up just to smile contentedly at seeing you walk around with the scar of the Chinese version of his name on your cheeks.” He made a disgusted sound as he secured the gauze at her back and looked over her. When he was satisfied, he rolled her shirt down himself, his hands lingering on her hips just for a moment.</p><p> </p><p>She took a deep breath after a moment. “What do you want from me, Baekhyun?” He looked back at her face after hearing his name roll from her lips. “I’m not a commander, that much is obvious. I can’t give you the information you want, I don’t have that kind of intel. All of the things Kris had asked me aren’t familiar to me. You can interrogate me all you want, but I have no idea whether Sehun’s wife is pregnant or where our interrogator is. I’m a freaking <em>trainee </em>that went on a field trip with my assigned commander yesterday. I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”</p><p> </p><p>Aeri hoped he wouldn’t notice the lies, and that he would buy them. She kept her body perfectly still and her voice even, as if she was talking about the weather. As Baekhyun looked at her, she couldn’t help but notice how strikingly similar he and his brother looked. The only thing different about them was the energy radiating off them - whereas flowers and rainbows swirled around Baekbeom’s light form and patient face, Baekhyun was all darkness, the weight of past sins and annoyance. She knew she was playing with fire, and that deceiving the older brother wouldn’t be easy at all, but she had to try.</p><p> </p><p>Her hopes shattered after a moment, when he raised his eyebrows at her. “A <em>trainee</em>?” He asked incredulously. “If you’re a trainee, then my brother is a freaking clan leader.” He crossed the distance between them within a second and put a hand under her chin. She flinched, expecting a slap to the face, and probably imagined the glint she saw in his eyes. His face expression darkened. “I can tolerate a lot of stuff, but if you attempt to bullshit me again, I’ll lock you up in that storage room and give Kris the key. What do you think I am, a moron?”</p><p> </p><p>Biting her lip, Aeri sighed for the millionth time that day and plopped down onto the bed. It proved to be a bad decision, as it made a piercing pain shoot through her abdomen, making her gasp. “Okay,” she said breathlessly. “I <em>have </em>been initiated, but that was only a couple months ago.” That was a half-truth; she had actually been initiated a year ago but it wouldn’t hurt to make herself seem as clueless and inexperienced as possible. “Nevertheless, I’m not someone who knows anything about our clan leadership.”</p><p> </p><p>Baekhyun snorted and she imagined his face hunching in disgust. She wasn’t faking her exhaustion and she couldn’t help but close her eyes even as a voice in her head told her she was being<em> rude at the very least for not bothering to look at the man who was trying to have a serious conversation with her</em>. “Listen, this is not going to go down the way you want it to. I’m not Baekbeom - you can’t flatter me into submission with a smile and a compliment. We both know you’re not going to run away with a stab wound in your stomach and a messed-up sense of balance. And Kris <em>will </em>return if I don’t give them answers - in two days or a week, I don’t know. But they will get tired of your silence, that much is absolutely certain. So you gotta give me something I can show them and keep them satisfied.”</p><p> </p><p>Damn it, this tactic of theirs was actually working. With Kris, it was easy - she was a prisoner, and Kris had the power to do whatever he wanted to her, no matter how horrible or wrong. She could channel all her rage and hatred at him and stay sane throughout the process because she knew she was on the <em>right </em>side. She wouldn’t give a torturer anything, too busy thinking of her clan and how she needed to protect them to actually feel the pain or be coaxed by it.</p><p> </p><p>But the things this man was telling her were actually making sense. If it was her clan and she was in his position, she probably would’ve done the same - laid the cards out on the table and asked him to cooperate without much drama or anyone getting hurt unnecessarily. She’d keep her hands clean, her clan would get what they wanted and the prisoner would avoid getting traumatized and severely injured, so it would be a win-win situation for everyone.</p><p> </p><p>Before she was able to nod, Baekhyun sighed again. “Look, if you feel more comfortable talking to my brother, you can talk to him.” His tone then turned from nice to spitting out harsh words. “But don’t you <em>dare </em>try to pull off anything that might jeopardize him. You might not be Kim Seo Young, but they wouldn’t take a regular fresh graduate on a mission of the utmost importance. I saw how you handled yourself back at the mansion - you’re anything <em>but </em>a regular trainee. So lay low, give me bits of truth every once in a while and hope everyone forgets about you if you want to live.”</p><p> </p><p>Her mind was already drifting to sleep, but his words still registered as odd. <em>A mission of the utmost importance</em>? Jongdae and Junmyeon hadn’t introduced it like that at all. If anything, it was a safeguard mission and taking care of probably-false rumors about some murderer on a rampage at the Oh property. Of course it had all sounded odd and perhaps a little <em>fake</em>, but they would’ve told her if it was an important mission… Wouldn’t they?</p><p> </p><p>“I was on a suspension,” she said groggily. “We were supposed to check the Oh property for intruders due to some strange rumors. And that’s the truth.” She wasn’t sure if she was actually saying the words or just thinking them, because she was already being pulled into a dream, losing contact with reality. She didn’t know if Baekhyun kept speaking or if she should’ve listened to him - right now she needed to rest.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, mysterious girl,” Baekhyun’s voice permeated her dreams, and she wondered if he would follow her there. “Now rest.” She felt something warm wrap around her, but she was too sleepy to open her eyes and check what it was.</p><p> </p><p>Then he was gone, and Aeri let go of the now and here, dreaming of a boy whose eyes were light brown in the sun and almost black in the darkness.</p><p> </p><p>Aeri felt herself drifting at the edge of consciousness, trying to remember what she had been dreaming about, but it was too late - the dream was already gone. With her eyes still closed, she struggled to get an echo of a melody out of her head.</p><p> </p><p>After a second, she realized that it wasn’t an echo, but that someone was actually playing an instrument somewhere close by. She must’ve still been dreaming, because it didn’t make any sense - she remembered where she was, and it definitely wasn’t a <em>musical academy</em>.</p><p> </p><p>It was a piano, she recognized after a moment, and the player seemed to be Beethoven himself; whoever was playing the instrument obviously wasn’t an amateur, the notes flowing effortlessly and in perfect harmony. It was not a musical piece she recognized, but then again, it wasn’t like Aeri was an expert on classical music. Her only exposure to it was once a year, on Kyungsoo’s birthday, when they dressed up and danced around the training room in the middle of the night. He’d taught her how to dance and although she wasn’t someone who’d ever go to a ball or even to the theater, she’d always had so much fun with him, sneaking around and breaking rules <em>just because they could</em>, dreaming of a different life where things as mundane as dancing and wearing a dress were allowed.</p><p> </p><p>She slowly blinked, and first realized that it was the middle of the night. When she tried to move, a pain in her back flared up, along with multiple burning sensations all over her body, the strongest one at her abdomen where the stab wound was. She would’ve stood up and walked over to the window, but she felt even more tired than before she’d fallen asleep, so she doubted she could even make the trip.</p><p> </p><p>So she settled down, hugging the blanket that was around her and deciding to drift off to sleep while the melody led her to a happier place where there were no mafia clans, secrets or lies. It probably wasn’t a real piano, though, since it was virtually impossible to have a piano at a mafia clan headquarters, but she allowed herself to dream that it was. She could make out the player, with a ruffled brown hair that was as soft as feathers and warm brown eyes that smiled even when he was trying to be serious-</p><p> </p><p>Then she heard the lock in the door click.</p><p> </p><p>There were several rational possibilities as to why someone would be coming into the room of a prisoner in the middle of the night. They could be just checking on her to see how her wounds were healing. Maybe it was just Baekbeom worrying about her and being unable to sleep without checking on her. Maybe they wanted to see for themselves that she was there and not digging an escape tunnel.</p><p> </p><p>But something in her gut screamed at her to <em>run</em>. She suddenly wished she had some kind of weapon on her - anything would be better than waiting to be killed - but there was nothing on the bed or the table. The room was completely empty save for the table, chair and the bed. Aeri panicked, sitting up too quickly, which in turn made the nausea appear in her stomach again. <em>What am I going to do?</em></p><p> </p><p>Even as the small bit of light coming through the windows of the room lit up a tall dark form in the doorway of the room, Aeri couldn’t help but feel <em>betrayed</em>. Betrayed by the haunting piano melody coming from the outside which now seemed to be mocking her and how it was so easy to get her guard down even though she was in the center of a hornet’s nest.</p><p> </p><p>“Knock, knock,” the voice from her nightmares purred at her. He knew she was awake, of course. He was back to finish what he’d started. <em>Two days or a week, my ass</em>. So much for the truthfulness of Baekhyun’s words. And she had nothing to defend herself with - they could’ve hung her upside down again, it wouldn’t have made any difference. She knew she’d be helpless against the giant man who just wanted to get off by the sounds of her screams.</p><p> </p><p>Her breathing turned into panting as she jumped from the bed, realizing she had to do <em>something, anything</em>. She ignored the pain in her legs, the dull ache in her stomach and the sense that she was on a boat rocking on water as she quickly waged her options - throw the chair at him, or throw the chair at the window and then jump through it. But it was <em>too high</em>, she’d break her neck as soon as she collided with the ground. The maple trees were too far away, she couldn’t possibly hope to reach their branches and make her retreat. There was nothing she could do, <em>nothing</em>-</p><p> </p><p>Kris made his way over to her slowly, enjoying each second of the game like the predator he was. He knew there was nothing she could do, there was no place she could go to, so why hurry when he could draw out her pain and feed on her fear? She struggled to stay upright, the melody now making her feel dizzy because this was too much, too fast. Her stomach stirred and she felt as if she was going to throw up; she knew it was not just due to her dizziness and messed-up balance center.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t be afraid, little kitty,” he purred again, his voice now much closer to her place next to the wall. Her hands were gripping the chair tightly. Maybe she could get a good hit across and run for the door, but she doubted she would make it. He was too tall; he would catch her by the ankle and pull her back before she made a single step.</p><p> </p><p>“Stay away from me, you sick psycho,” she growled, hoping to sidetrack him for at least a couple of seconds. He was the type of person to stop and narrate his plans to the victim for hours, although she didn’t know what she hoped to gain with time. For the person who’d been playing the melody on their phone to come to her aid? She didn’t even know who it was - it could be Kris’ older and more sick brother for all she knew. But there was something inside of her that knew there was something about that melody, something that she <em>knew</em>, something that made her dare to hope.</p><p> </p><p>Kris chuckled, and it was so dark and sinful that a shudder rocked her spine. Not enough time had passed since his promises of doing all kinds of things to her, things she knew he was there to make good on. But she’d rather throw herself through the window than let it happen. She could do it, she knew. “You know your insults turn me on, right?”</p><p> </p><p>And suddenly, it didn’t matter anymore. Not the melody, which was making something stir from deep within her, nor Kris gently trailing his hand on her hip, slowly inching towards her behind. Not even his sugar-sweet voice which was now too close to her ear saying, “I’m not here to hurt you, sugar. Tonight, I’m here to <em>play</em>. The memory of your moans wouldn’t let me fall asleep.”</p><p> </p><p>It seemed like time had slowed down. He was just far away enough for her to <em>slowly </em>lift the chair without him sensing the movement. His touch was just gentle enough for her to be able to inch away, turning her body towards the closest window without raising suspicion. She even whimpered, turning her voice as whiny as possible whilst trying to get his mind into the gutter as much as she could. “But I don’t want to play. I’m too tired.” She hoped her false surrender would work, because if it didn’t and he sensed what she was going to do before she did it, it would be over. He’d use her body and she would be broken forever.</p><p> </p><p>She had to find a way to prevent that from happening. She <em>had </em>to.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, baby, but you’ll be begging me for <em>more </em>soon enough, I promise.” She did not feel the urge to throw up anymore. All she could think about was how satisfied she would feel when she cut his throat with the broken glass. It didn’t matter what the Han clan did to her afterward. She didn’t <em>care</em>; all she wanted was to make this world a better place by ridding it of Kris Wu once and for all.</p><p> </p><p>And just as he was about to grab her and make true on his promise of infinite pain for herself and infinite pleasure for <em>him</em>, she jumped towards the window, the chair clutched tightly into her hands. She didn’t stop when her sore muscles protested, or when she felt something start leaking out of her stomach wound from jerking too hard. She didn’t care that the whole world was spinning or that she missed a step, directly crashing into the window together with the chair. And she <em>most certainly </em>didn’t care about the alarmed, surprised sound Kris made behind her, his hands ghosting over her form as she fell too far out of his grasp for the moment.</p><p> </p><p>There was a loud crashing sound and her whole left arm started tingling, a warm feeling spreading over it. She heard a loud <em>thunk </em>as the chair she’d thrown through the window collided with the ground below, and for a split second, she wondered if she should’ve followed it. But her body was already on autopilot, too many years of training kicking in to defend her from the menace that was already dragging her back by the ankles, shouting, “You stupid little bitch! You’re going to wake the whole compound up!” Somewhere at the back of her mind she noted that it was too silent now that she’d made her move, the melody disappearing into thin air. <em>Perhaps I</em><em>’d imagined it being played in the first place</em>, she thought to herself.</p><p> </p><p>She couldn’t help but start hysterically laughing as he dragged her back into the darkness of the room. <em>Too late, sucker</em>, she thought, because she had already found the two shards of glass she needed to bring this whole situation to a close. She trashed against him, but not in an effort to get away. <em>No</em>, she wanted to turn and then jump at him to jam the shards into his throat as deep as they’d go. Her leg muscles protested, already too weak and too strained from her previous efforts, but she <em>didn</em><em>’t care </em>as she maneuvered them around.</p><p> </p><p>This, <em>this right here </em>was why Jongdae hadn’t transferred her to another class of trainees. He knew that somewhere deep inside of her, bottled with anger and frustration and the sense of never being good enough, a savage bloodthirsty predator hid in waiting. He’d recognized it because he also had one inside of himself. He’d seen it one too many times after being called in to break a fight between her and one of the other douchebag trainees who’d called her <em>Kyungsoo</em><em>’s whore </em>and who’d said her family had thrown her out because she was a <em>disgraced bastard</em>. He was always there to stop her before she did something she’d feel sorry for later, when she was back to being her normal self - he’d snatch her hands away before she was able to pull the trigger or carve the culprit’s heart out with her knife or break one too many bones.</p><p> </p><p>It was why they all left her alone, in the end, whispering <em>freak </em>behind her back. But Jongdae wasn’t there to save Kris now.</p><p> </p><p>Her voice rose over Kris’ cursing and pinning her body down. They were in the exact right position - her back on the floor, his hips on her own, pushing her down, his hands on her waist as he ground into her instead of trying to pin her wrists down. “Oh, I’m going to enjoy this,” she said in a voice she didn’t recognize. A small part of her wanted her to snap out of this - to just cut his arm lightly or stab his leg so that he couldn’t follow when she ran away. Perhaps she could use the commotion to leave this forsaken place altogether-</p><p> </p><p>“I’m going to make you pay for this,” Kris roared, and once again made the mistake of not focusing on her hands or on the glass in them. “I’m going to make this <em>hurt so much</em>.” <em>No</em>, he was too focused on unbuttoning her pants and ripping her underwear, on <em>punishing </em>her for being disobedient, and even though he knew everyone was going to be here in a matter of minutes, as soon as they realized what had happened and from which room the chair had been thrown away, he was intent on doing this to her. On laying her out like this for the whole world to see as he took her dignity - the only thing she had left - away forever.</p><p> </p><p>She snapped.</p><p> </p><p>She screamed, the sound echoing off the walls and coming back to her own head like a tidal wave. Her hands moved on their own accord, without her volition or having to give them the command to strike. And <em>oh, she was going to enjoy feeling the life seep out of him with the blood</em>. She was even sad that she wouldn’t be able to see the look on his face as he died and finally stopped torturing her.</p><p> </p><p>Except none of it happened.</p><p> </p><p>Time had slowed down before, but now it seemed to stop entirely, and three forms were frozen in place in a death grip.</p><p> </p><p>Her hands hadn’t collided with Kris’ throat. The shards of glass were a couple millimeters away from his throat. Kris’ hands were stuck in a grip on her unbuttoned pants, having stopped mid-yanking them off when she’d screamed.</p><p> </p><p>And in between them was a third person which Aeri recognized even though she could barely see anything. Even though she could only just make out a slight glint of fire in those dark brown eyes.</p><p> </p><p>She’d recognize the scent of maples, of outdoors, of <em>home </em>anywhere. His brother was the light and he was the darkness which was enveloping her completely right now.</p><p> </p><p>“Drop it.” His voice was soft but strict, leaving no room for argument.</p><p> </p><p>And she did. Even though he was her enemy, she couldn’t deny him. Not when he was now the only thing between her and Kris. Not when something inside of her screamed at her that he would <em>protect </em>her from his spawn from hell.</p><p> </p><p>Then she released a breath she didn’t know she had been holding. It came out ragged, ending in a hiccup. <em>She would not cry</em>, she kept telling herself. <em>She would not cry while Kris was there</em>. The adrenaline rush was slowly leaving her body, leaving her feeling empty and ashamed and <em>oh my God, what was I about to do, oh my God I would</em><em>’ve killed him</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Baekhyun’s hands took her own into his and squeezed tightly. <em>He</em><em>’ll protect you</em>, that treacherous voice repeated. Her hands were shaking and she felt like Kyungsoo right before one of his panic attack episodes - she couldn’t breathe. Soon she’d be gasping for air and convulsing on the floor like a fish without water. She whimpered because Kris’ hands were still on her, he wasn’t moving, this was still happening, she needed to get away from here before he-</p><p> </p><p>She felt the punch before she heard it. One of Baek’s hands was still gripping her own, and the other was suddenly turning and hitting Kris head-on somewhere on his face, presumably at the center. Hopefully his nose cracked. Hopefully it never healed and stayed crooked forever.</p><p> </p><p>“Get out,” he growled at Kris. “Get the fuck out of my sight.” Once again, his voice was low in intensity, but the thickness of it conveyed all the emotions well enough - the disgust, the anger, the despair, the fury. Her stomach twisted because she did not know how to feel about any of it. All she knew was that she needed Kris <em>away</em>.</p><p> </p><p>When Kris failed to comply, Baekhyun roughly jammed his hands from Aeri’s pants and pushed him away. “Do <em>not </em>make me repeat myself.”</p><p> </p><p>Aeri waited five seconds. She counted them in her head slowly. <em>Five, four, three</em>… All the while, Baekhyun didn’t move from where he was crouching above her, shielding her from Kris. <em>Two, one</em><em>…</em></p><p> </p><p>A loud sob racked through her whole body and she started shuddering wildly. She hiccuped again and again as she began crying,  overwhelmed with everything that had happened since she’d accepted to search for a murderer in the woods around the Oh mansion. This wasn’t fair, she didn’t have anything to do with any of this, why had she deserved to be almost raped by a complete maniac whilst being held prisoner and tortured? Why did this have to happen to her?</p><p> </p><p>“It’s okay,” Baekhyun whispered as he hugged her close to his body. “I’m here now. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” His hands wound into her hair as he rocked her, shushing her while holding her tightly against his chest. Her head was nestled in the crook of his neck where she hiccuped and cried. Her hands were dead weights, dangling off her body because she didn’t have the strength to push him away. She didn’t <em>want </em>to.</p><p> </p><p>His words combined with the gentleness with which he was handling her only made her cry harder, and soon she was sniffling, embarrassed with what he was witnessing and the wetness that was soaking up his shirt. “I’m sorry,” he repeated again and she whimpered, not understanding what he was apologizing for in contrast to how warm <em>why </em>he was apologizing was making her feel. This wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t the one who’d done any of this to her. On the contrary, he’d sent his brother to tend to her wounds and questioned her in a civilized manner. He’d offered her kindness and protection more than once. <em>Thank you</em>, she wanted to say. <em>Thank you so much</em>.</p><p> </p><p>She told herself she’d imagined the gentle kiss on the top of her head and how he seemed to hug her tightly afterward. Whether he was reassuring himself or her that everything was alright, she didn’t know and couldn’t bring herself to care.</p><p> </p><p>All she knew was that she was home now.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Garden of Blue Roses</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Aeri was <em>not </em>fine.</p><p> </p><p>First of all, she felt dirty. Not only did she need to take a shower, but her clothes were dirty, tethered and bloody. Her skin felt as if it had been under at least five layers of dirt and no amount of ethanol and ointment would make it go away.</p><p> </p><p>But she also felt dirty… because of what had happened the night before. She’d tried to follow Baekbeom’s words, she really did. “It was just a bad dream,” he’d said, with her head in his lap while he gently raked his fingers through her hair over and over again. But as soon as she closed her eyes, she’d feel the ghost of Kris’ hands unbuttoning her pants. She couldn’t get his voice out of her head, even though Baek had sang her lullabies until she’d finally managed to fall asleep.</p><p> </p><p>The worst thing was, there was something nagging at her that felt even <em>stronger </em>than what had happened. She didn’t care about the fact that her palms were split open from clutching the glass shards too tightly. She didn’t care about the bruise on her shoulder from having hit the glass window too hard, or about the stomach wound splitting open. Baekbeom had made sure to stitch everything up, and she didn’t mind it the least because she wasn’t <em>there </em>while it all happened.</p><p> </p><p>No, she was too busy replaying the look on Baekhyun’s face before he’d fled from the infirmary. He’d held her so gently while she’d fallen apart. When she’d calmed down a little bit, he’d murmured something about turning the light on to assess the damage and treat her wounds. And then he’d <em>seen</em> it - the blood and glass all over her, the bruises, the hitched shirt and the <em>unbuttoned pants</em>.</p><p> </p><p>She’d seen the wheels turning inside of his mind, and as soon as he realized what exactly had almost taken place in the room, his whole demeanor had changed. She wasn’t even sure whether it was due to the fact that she was about to jam two shards of glass larger than her whole hand into Kris’ throat or because he was about to take her against her will.</p><p> </p><p>Whatever the reason, his eyes had darkened with understanding and then his face morphed into a disgusted expression. He’d made a sound deep in his throat and immediately wiped his hands on his trousers, as if she’d dirtied him somehow. And then he’d turned and left without a word.</p><p> </p><p>She still felt bile in her throat from how it had made her feel. When Baekbeom had arrived a while later, presumably called in by his brother who was above taking care of this whole mess, he had found her with her back leaned against the wall, staring out into the distance through the broken window while her hands were absentmindedly trying to scrub the dirtiness from her body.</p><p> </p><p>She was thankful because he didn’t recoil from her the way his brother had. On the contrary, he sat right in front of her line of vision, seemingly uncaring about the glass and the blood on the floor. He’d taken her hands into his own and told her how sorry he was about everything. How he should’ve stayed with her and protected her. How he should’ve seen this coming instead of choosing to trust Kris would follow orders and stay true to his word. She didn’t know how to feel about his promises of protection - the promises of an overgrown boy who was apparently a pacifist. She didn’t know how to feel about anything at all, so she chose numbness instead.</p><p> </p><p>He’d cleaned everything up while she just sat there, unresponsive. She didn’t know if she was shocked, angry, scared or disgusted. At the moment, all of those feelings felt foreign, and she couldn’t quite feel any of them - she felt… empty. As if she was floating in the air, not quite realizing that she wasn’t dreaming. Perhaps Baek was right; maybe convincing herself none of it was real would’ve been better.</p><p> </p><p>She was jolted out of her trance-like state when Baek had taken her hands in his own once again, rubbing soothing circles on the backs of her hands, careful to avoid the injuries. She wanted to smile at the gesture and tell him that it didn’t matter, because she couldn’t feel the pain anyway.</p><p> </p><p>“Is it okay if I treat your wounds now?” he’d whispered. The wind was blowing into the room from the broken window, ruffling his hair, and it carried the smell of maples. It would’ve calmed her, had it not unnecessarily reminded her of the older brother and his disgusted expression. <em>She was dirty, she would never be able to wash it away</em>.</p><p> </p><p>When her eyes had brimmed with tears and she’d whimpered against her will, he’d hugged her and it felt similar to Baekhyun’s embrace, just a million times softer. She decided she wouldn’t fall apart again, pushing him away from the hug and nodding at him a moment later.</p><p> </p><p>He’d helped her take her shirt and pants off, and she shivered in the cold until he’d taken off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. She went back to being unresponsive, staring through the window while he took the med kit out and treated her numerous injuries. Her stomach and both palms were in stitches now, and he made sure to change ice packs for her shoulder and side often.</p><p> </p><p>Then he’d helped her get up from her position on her floor and settled her down in the bed.</p><p> </p><p>Before she had a chance to thank him for his care, he’d sat down on the bed and guided her head into his lap. And then he’d stayed with her until the sun rose above the horizon.</p><p> </p><p>She fell in and out of consciousness a couple of times, sometimes finding him singing a lullaby, sometimes feeling him braid her hair, sometimes rocking her gently. He was the only thing keeping her sane and keeping her mind from wandering back to that place where she felt dirty and violated. <em>It could</em><em>’ve been so much worse</em>, she’d thought. <em>What if Baekhyun had arrived just a couple of minutes later?</em></p><p> </p><p>Baekbeom would shush her every time she shuddered and his hands would tighten on her body. His skin smelled like skin care products, although the smell of maples was stronger than the chemicals. He was a man who spent a lot of time outside, too. And unbeknown to him, he was helping her forget about his brother who’d unintentionally hurt her.</p><p> </p><p>Before she’d finally lost consciousness and surrendered to sleep as the sun rose over the horizon, she’d felt him plant a kiss on her forehead. “Sleep, beautiful,” he’d whispered gently. “You’re safe now.”</p><p> </p><p>When she woke up, he was not there.</p><p> </p><p>“Good morning!” Someone said in a high-pitched voice behind her, nearly shouting.</p><p> </p><p>Aeri yelped and tucked the covers tighter around her form, painfully aware that she was half-naked beneath them.</p><p> </p><p>She turned to see an obviously Chinese man grinning at her. He was tall and couldn’t have been older than her. His hair was perfectly dyed in blond, long enough to fall into his eyes but too short to be wrapped in a ponytail. He was too thin and reminded her of male fashion models, especially due to the fact that he was <em>carrying a designer bag in one hand</em>.</p><p> </p><p>An eyebrow raised, she rasped, “Uhm… good morning. What are you doing here?”</p><p> </p><p>The overgrown fashion-model boy seemed elated that she’d asked him that. He raised a finger and said, “Ah-ha!” dramatically, grinning the whole while. Then he opened the designer bag, rummaged through it for a second, quickly found a book and took it out. As he searched for something amongst its pages, Aeri was able to make out the title of the book. <em>English-Chinese dictionary</em>.</p><p> </p><p><em>You have got to be kidding me</em>, she thought. <em>Seriously? Don</em><em>’t they learn English as part of their training</em>?</p><p> </p><p>She managed to sit up before the Chinese boy exclaimed “Ah-ha!” again. She wondered if this was a habit of his.</p><p> </p><p>She also wondered how many more times she’d have to hear the exclamation before they got through the greetings part.</p><p> </p><p>“I,” he began, pointing at himself as if she was deaf, “Huang Zitao.”</p><p> </p><p>She had <em>absolutely no idea what that meant</em>. Was he using the dictionary wrong and reading the Chinese words instead of the English translations?</p><p> </p><p>The blank look on her face apparently wasn’t enough to discourage him from continuing, or to make him explain the Chinese words. “You,” he said while pointing at her. “Clouthes.”</p><p> </p><p>She wouldn’t have understood the broken English with a thick accent had he not pointed at the table, where fresh clothes and toiletries were located.</p><p> </p><p>He bit his lip and then scrolled through the book again. She braced herself for the exclamation again, but he seemed to have found the word he was looking for rather too quickly. She suspected the post-it-note from the book had helped. “Bath-roooooom!” he said in an even higher pitch. “You. I.”</p><p> </p><p>“What?” she couldn’t help but say. <em>Why on earth would the two of us go to the bathroom</em>?</p><p> </p><p>He obviously had no idea what the word <em>what </em>meant, because he didn’t stop his journey through the dictionary. “Now!” he exclaimed again, and she found herself shaking her head at him.</p><p> </p><p>“You must’ve misunderstood,” she began while he approached her with that creepy grin still plastered on his face. He looked <em>proud </em>of himself for being able to find all the words he needed to say whatever it was that he’d meant to communicate with her. “I’m not going to the bathroom with you. <em>Alone</em>,” she tried.</p><p> </p><p>He exclaimed “Ah-ha!” again and nodded his head, taking her by the hands and effectively dragging her out of the bed. “Bathroooooom! <em>Hao!</em>”</p><p> </p><p><em>Oh my God</em>, Aeri thought as she could do nothing but clutch the sheets to her body as the man brought her to a stand and moved to grab the clothes and toiletries. He dropped them into her hands unceremoniously and then put the dictionary back into the designer bag. “I!” he said again, as if that was supposed to mean something to her.</p><p> </p><p>His clothes were all black, of course, and didn’t tell her anything about his position in the clan. <em>Definitely not the interrogator</em>. Leather pants and a black button-up shirt were common enough, with the exception of the designer bag, which was <em>definitely </em>uncommon. This couldn’t be Luhan, could it? If this was the Han clan leader, it was a wonder that the clan was even able to function, yet alone prosper.</p><p> </p><p>But then the man began walking away and Aeri’s mind turned blank again, because he was walking like a fashion model too. His head swayed from side to side while he put one leg in front of the other, and she wondered if she’d been transferred to the asylum or something. <em>What the hell</em>?</p><p> </p><p>But when he opened the door of the infirmary and beckoned her forward with another “I!”, which was apparently the only word he knew how to say in English, Aeri started moving eagerly, because <em>he was going to take her out of the room, she would be able to see her surroundings and hopefully find out where they were holding Jongdae</em>.</p><p> </p><p><em>If </em>they were holding Jongdae, that was.</p><p> </p><p>Unfortunately, the bathroom was at the end of the hall, so Aeri didn’t find out anything new except that the Han family had very handsome clan leaders, whose pictures were all over the walls. It would’ve looked creepy to her, but as soon as the bathroom door were opened she found herself biting her lip. <em>This was exactly what she needed</em>.</p><p> </p><p>The fashion model thankfully didn’t follow her in like he’d previously said, and she was thankful for the fact that there was a lock on the bathroom door. She didn’t want to risk him opening the door to tell her something he’d found in his dictionary or exclaim “Ah-ha!” again. She was spooked enough as it was already.</p><p> </p><p>Aeri stayed in the bathroom for a <em>long time</em>. She couldn’t find it in herself to feel bad about it; she felt so dirty that no amount of scrubbing her skin could help her feel better about her body. She was careful not to spray any water directly onto the stitched wound on her stomach or on her hands, but it quickly proved to be a bad decision to shower at all because the wounds <em>hurt </em>when the water reached them anyway. She gritted her teeth and kept scrubbing. She washed her hair four times just to make sure the dirt was out of it. She <em>needed </em>this.</p><p> </p><p>When she was out of the shower, she couldn’t bring herself to look at her body, afraid of what she’d see. She couldn’t handle thinking about anything but getting dressed and going back to the infirmary room where she’d be able to lay down in the bed and rest. She already felt <em>exhausted </em>and she hadn’t actually done anything but stand under a spray of water, washing herself from Kris and the torture. She told herself the water would take the memories of it away, but it was just wishful thinking - his voice was still with her, whispering promises of more at the back of her mind.</p><p> </p><p>She heard a knock on the door while she was trying and failing to fit into the too-small leather pants for the third time. She was groaning while sitting at the toilet, putting the last ounce of energy into making her legs twitch, but the pants were simply <em>too small</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Relief flooded over her because it was Baekbeom behind the door. “Everything okay in there, Aeri?” His voice was laced with concern, and she wondered if they’d thought she was trying to drown herself in the shower or escape through the sewers. She <em>had </em>taken a really long time in there, she knew.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, you might have chosen the wrong size of clothes,” she panted, trying to fit into the pants for the last time. “I can’t fit into the pants.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, I’m sorry,” Baek responded, his voice muffled but the relief still palpable in his voice. “I’ll bring you a new pair immediately. How many sizes larger?”</p><p> </p><p>“Two,” she puffed, finally managing to get her legs out of the too-tight material. <em>Just to be sure that it</em><em>’ll fit</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Two sizes turned out to be the right choice, because she was barely able to fit into the new pants. <em>What material do they make this pants of</em>? she wondered. They didn’t look nearly as uncomfortable on the Han clan members as they felt on her body. Had she gained weight or something?</p><p> </p><p>When she unlocked and opened the door, she found Baekbeom waiting with his hands crossed. He looked well-rested, although he’d spent the whole night watching over her. Her chest constricted, a lump forming in her throat due to the kindness this man had shown her. “Thank you,” she whispered, her cheeks heating up at the memory of his hands embracing her, wounding in her hair, the ghost of his lips on her forehead. “You’re too kind.”</p><p> </p><p>Baekbeom smiled at her shyly, scratching his neck with his hand. “How are you feeling?” he said while he let her lean on him, leading her back to the infirmary. “The window has been replaced while you were in the bathroom. We could’ve given you another room, but I don’t think you should move around too much for the next couple of days or so. And I-” he stammered. “I, I believe you like the view, and there’s no other room with a whole portal of windows so I thought you…”</p><p> </p><p>Aeri nodded as he lowered her down onto the bed. The window was indeed fixed and the mess completely cleaned up, so that now it looked as if nothing had happened in the first place. There was a new chair at the table, with medical supplies scattered all over, an IV stand in the corner of the room and a plate of food. “I think you’ll need to inspect the stab wound,” she said with some difficulty. She felt <em>exhausted </em>but thankfully, the dizziness was getting better. She was at least happy that her sense of balance was returning, albeit slowly. “I know you’re not supposed to get fresh wounds wet but I… I <em>had</em> to clean myself.” She didn’t offer any further explanations, and Baekbeom didn’t ask anything else, which she was thankful for.</p><p>
  
</p><p>Having Baekbeom lift her new shirt - which was black, of course - was much easier this time. He didn’t even manage to ask for permission before she was taking his hands in her own while nodding and lifting the shirt. The wound hadn’t opened, thankfully, and he commented how it didn’t look like there would be an infection. Her palms didn’t hurt a lot, and Baek expressed his worry about the new wounds.</p><p> </p><p>“You might have severed some nerves in your palms,” he said in a worried voice as he inspected her palms. “You can’t move your fingers and the wounds don’t hurt. I’m not sure if the cuts are too deep or not.”</p><p> </p><p>He was indeed right. She could make the fingers on her right arm twitch, at least, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get the fingers of her left hand to move. She couldn’t even begin to think what this could mean. If she couldn’t use the fingers of one hand… Her career would be over. She needed both hands and <em>then some</em>; she was barely able to keep up even when her health was intact. How on earth would she work if she couldn’t fire a gun or hold anything with her left hand?</p><p> </p><p>Baek was once again able to sense her thoughts. She looked into his eyes while he rubbed circles into the backs of her hands. “It’ll come back, you’ll see,” he said gently. “You just need to be patient.”</p><p> </p><p>After he’d fed her - she felt like a child because now she wasn’t even able to hold a spoon with her hand, although it could’ve been worse, she supposed, because what if she wasn’t able to use the bathroom or shower on her own? - Baekbeom helped her lay down on the bed, her back propped by pillows which certainly <em>weren</em><em>’t </em>there last night, and then nodded contently after pulling the covers over her.</p><p> </p><p>“So I was thinking,” he began uncertainly, biting his lip as he turned his face towards the windows, leaving her with the pleasant profile view of his face. “Uh… It took a while to get my brother to agree to it, but I thought you might like to see the garden.”</p><p> </p><p>She wasn’t able to do much but raise an eyebrow, wondering what he meant by <em>garden </em>when he started talking again. “I mean, not that you have to if you don’t want to, you can totally say no, but Baekhyun says it’ll be a while before we can release you and I can’t imagine how cooped up you must feel, spending so much time in an empty room doing nothing while you’re wounded so I somehow got him to say <em>yes </em>and he even said I can give you a tour today if Tao manages to get the wheelchair from Fei-”</p><p> </p><p>“Wheelchair?” she echoed in disbelief. Her mind was racing, questions immediately forming: A<em> while before they release me? Give me a tour? Fei? What is this guy talking about?</em> She decided to voice none of them, instead focusing on the most obvious alarming part of his hectic monologue. “What do you mean, <em>wheelchair</em>?”</p><p> </p><p>Baekbeom turned his face towards her in a flash, his mouth slightly parted as he shut his eyes tightly and then opened them again. “So you don’t want to see the garden? Proposing to take you there while you’re still too hurt to walk was a mistake? Okay, it was <em>totally </em>a mistake, forget I said anything.”</p><p> </p><p>She slowly let herself realize what he was implying. <em>He wanted to take her, an assassin from an enemy mafia clan, to a tour through some garden in a wheelchair because she was too wounded to get to the garden on her own</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Her facade crumbled, and she found herself making a noise of disbelief. She took Baekbeom’s hands in her own, feeling like a mother needing to chastise a child for having done something stupid. She couldn’t believe what was about to come out of her mouth. <em>This whole freaking situation is ridiculous and absurd</em>. “Baekbeom, this is not how it works.” Her voice was incredibly soft - she didn’t want to hurt him with her words. He deserved so much more than that. “You can’t let me get out of this room. I would find out everything about your compound and then later use it as an advantage against your clan. You can’t put your family in danger like that. And I don’t think you heard your brother well - he would <em>never </em>allow something like that.”</p><p> </p><p>Even though she’d known him for a day, Aeri knew Baekbeom was not someone who got angry. That’s why she got surprised when his face suddenly contorted into a grimace of annoyance and outrage, once again reminding her of how similar he was to his older brother. “You are not a prisoner here,” he nearly growled, his hands forming fists but not moving out of her own, which were now clutching his wrists. “You can’t leave until the higher-ups give the thumbs up, but that doesn’t mean you have to stay confined in this room forever. I can blindfold you while we move through the compound, I don’t care.” He seemed to have found the strength to look directly into her eyes, and for some reason, it left her breathless. She hoped he didn’t notice that her hands were shaking. “But you’re a <em>person</em>, and if you ask me, you need to be treated like a <em>guest</em>. That’s what I told Baekhyun, and he said okay. So are <em>you</em> okay with it?”</p><p> </p><p>She could do nothing but nod along, gulping as she realized that neither of the Baek brothers were people to mess with.</p><p> </p><p>A while later, Jong Aeri was once again rethinking her position in the world and feeling that familiar pang of nostalgia for having neglected her own dreams for far too many years, having buried herself in her work and the need to be the best trainee when all she’d really wanted to do was lose herself in some faraway forgotten uninhabited patch of land, content to roam through the unknown vastness of space and roll around the grassy meadows forever. All she’d ever really wanted was to be <em>free</em>.</p><p> </p><p>The year began with the gentleness of cherry blossoms carried by the warm southern winds. Spring belonged to the grandiose tulips, creating a rainbow of colors that consumed the entire world for a short while. Summer carried the smell of hydrangeas, and those with good hearing could make out their soft singing if they leaned in to listen. In autumn, the twilight sky mirrored the color of roses, waving the hummingbirds goodbye. And during the winter, the whiteness of snow reminded her of daisies, waiting below the surface for the first ray of sunshine.</p><p> </p><p>Assassins did not get to see flowers often. Nor did spies or thieves. As a combination of all three, she had gotten used to broken vases and flower bouquets clutched tightly by the hands of people who were at the wrong side of the pointless war in which she was a meaningless soldier being her only connection to the beautiful world of gardening.</p><p> </p><p>She had told herself a long time ago that she would never live the life where she would get to indulge herself in things liked by all women. She had replaced skirts with leather pants, brushes and makeup sets with knives and guns, and colored everything in black because that was what was expected of her, and there was <em>no</em> place for arguing. She was just another soldier, another number on the Oh clan list, another person who would play their role and proceed to fade into oblivion when the clan had no further use of them.</p><p> </p><p>Yet somehow, even with all the hard work and discipline that’d reshaped her into the Oh clan mold throughout all these years, she found herself gasping softly as the blindfold fell from her face and she laid her eyes upon Baekbeom’s garden - because it had to be <em>his</em>, seeing how much care was put into every single detail - for the first time. She struggled to remember why she was hesitant to agree to his proposition, even if sitting in a wheelchair made her feel vulnerable and embarrassed and her cheeks seemed to be permanently tinted with red. A small voice in her head whispered <em>conspiracy </em>at her, and she might’ve indulged her paranoia had the quietness not seemed so real and inviting, the singing of birds putting the maple woods into a peaceful state.</p><p> </p><p>She felt like she was intruding on some holy ground, as if taking a deep breath would scare the birds away and make the flowers crumble. She seemed to be drunk on the maple scent, and something inside of her screamed <em>Baekhyun, Baekhyun </em>over and over again as she inevitably wondered where he was and what he was doing, if he was walking through these very woods right now and soaking up in the scent that she’d come to view as distinctly <em>his</em>. She tried to not let the image of his face contorting in disgust form in her head, but it did anyway.</p><p> </p><p>After a moment, it was gone, replaced by the boy whose face was nothing but soft smile wrinkles and sun-kissed skin, his eyes closed as he hummed, leaning down so that his face was close to hers. “I take it your silence means that the trip was worth it,” he said in a voice that was much too happy to be fake. She wanted to counter him by default and not let him win in this argument but…</p><p> </p><p>The garden was... <em>Beautiful </em>didn't even begin to cover it. She had never seen such beauty in her whole life - ever or anywhere before. All around her were <em>flowers</em> of various sizes, colors and species. She stood up on her legs shakily, ignoring the sound of protest from next to her.</p><p> </p><p>She was standing in the center of a small path leading through the fields, which were divided in stripes of yellow, red, white and pink. Some stripes of the garden contained millions of flowers of the same species and color, whereas other stripes were vibrant with different colors and sizes of flowers. Beyond the stripes of fields of flowers, the maple woods stood, both protecting and aiding the flowers from the merciless summer heat. The smell of fresh grass, flower fragrance and maple mixed before reaching her nostrils, intoxicating her and making her feel as if she’d left the real world and entered some parallel dimension or something that <em>couldn</em><em>’t </em>be real.</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t know what to say; she couldn’t trust her voice to say anything, so she just nodded, unable to move her eyes away from the stunning sight all around her. It was a magnificent view, infinitely more so than what she could see from the infirmary, and she allowed herself a moment of serenity, putting down her defenses just in order to indulge in this otherworldly place.</p><p> </p><p>It didn’t help that the weather was nice, not a trace of impending autumn in the air. She tried to tell herself over and over again that this was a bad place, that she was here against her own will and that they had already tortured her and would kill her as soon as they gained her trust and important intel.</p><p> </p><p>Yet she found herself clutching her hands tightly to her chest when Baekbeom led her to the edge of the garden to see beautiful blooming roses framing the outer edges of the garden, their thorns forming a living fence to keep the flowers from predators.</p><p> </p><p>Yet she found herself touching the soft petals after leaning down to look at the eccentric, but oddly-beautiful indigo rose flowers. She stole a glance at Baek then, looking at him for a second from under her lashes, and the haunted boy was back again, his face deep in thought as he watched her, with the weight of the whole world resting on his shoulders. He turned his head as soon as their eyes met, and the sunlight caught in his irises, making it look as if his eyes were made of molten gold. She seemed inclined to believe that it was merely showing what his soul looked like - golden and delicate, yet strong enough to withstand the harsh weather of the world.</p><p> </p><p>She was surrounded by various kinds of flowers, most of which she couldn’t identify. White, yellow, orange, red, pink, red and purple stared at her - from tall sunflowers to delicate daisies. She did not understand how all of these flowers were blooming all at once - it was certainly not blooming season for flowers like <em>tulips</em>. She also did not understand why some of the flowers looked like hybrid species with unnatural colors such as dark green or with color gradation on single petals. Hybrid species did not belong in the garden of a mafia clan. They belonged with mad scientists. Was Baekbeom one? <em>Well, it certainly wouldn't be surprising</em>, she thought to herself. <em>And there are certainly worse vices than breeding flowers in your backyard.</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>She leaned in to smell a blue rose, captivated by its oddity and the way it stood out among all the other flowers. It looked so out-of-place but also at home here, in this strange garden meant as a sanctuary for strange species. She felt a connection instantly. In a way, Baekbeom and her were the same - both pursuing dreams that did not fit into the mafia world they were cast into. She would’ve felt a pang of jealousy because he was actually able to pursue his dream, but the fact that his clan was actually letting him do this was too strange and out of place. <em>What bargain had Baekhyun needed to make in order to get something like this for his brother?</em> Was he a prisoner of his clan, just like Aeri was herself?</p><p> </p><p>“There is a saying that those who breathe in their scent forget everything they once knew,” Baek said softly from behind her. She gasped, startled by his sudden appearance. Her walls were still down, but how wouldn't they be in this place? Goosebumps appeared on her back from the close proximity of Baekbeom and the heat his body radiated with.</p><p> </p><p>She immediately leaned away from the rose.</p><p> </p><p>He laughed softly. “Don’t be silly,” he said through laughter, crouching next to her. She struggled not to look at him, but through her peripheral vision she saw the ruffled hair and see-through face of a passionate boy. “Blue roses don’t really exist. See?”</p><p> </p><p>He started to scratch at the surface of a petal, and she moved her hands to stop him, but in the next moment, the petal turned white. “It’s just blue dye.”</p><p> </p><p><em>And here I thought he was a mad scientist breeding rare species, when he just breeds white flowers and sprays paint onto them. How typical of me to be so naive. </em>She snorted and rolled her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>She raised an eyebrow while he pouted his lips and scrunched his nose, seemingly deep in thought. “I know what you’re thinking, that I’m <em>cheap</em>.” He made it sound like a curse word. “All other species in my garden are authentic. But roses are not capable of producing the blue pigment, you know. A blue rose symbolizes something unattainable, something that doesn’t exist, yet it pushes all passionate gardeners to want to have it that much more.” He then shied away, shrugging his shoulders. “And, well, I wanted to have it. Even if it’s… just a cheap copy.”</p><p> </p><p>The world stopped for a moment.</p><p> </p><p>She couldn’t help herself; she laughed out loud. “Oh my God,” she said through laughter, not believing what she was hearing. “That is so… ridiculous! Why on earth would anyone go to such length to dye a rose in their garden blue? I have never heard of something so over-the-edge!”</p><p> </p><p>He smiled, scratching his head. Had she <em>embarrassed </em>him? <em>Again</em>? “Well, it’s beautiful, isn’t it? I don’t think the white roses will mind, though. There’s plenty of them as it is - it’s better to camouflage some of them in order to deceive the enemy.”</p><p> </p><p>She laughed again, feeling a comfortable buzz in her stomach. She was in such a good mood today - if she managed to survive the night without being stabbed again, it would be <em>amazing</em>. “But what about their identity-” she started to say and stopped.</p><p> </p><p>The sun’s rays were again playing a game, refracting through the maple leaves and creating a web of shadows over Baekbeom’s face.</p><p> </p><p>Right in that moment, the wind started to blow, and the web of shadows started tingling. The sunlight shone directly into his unblinking eyes. He did not squint or move away, or blink and turn his gaze towards his flowers.</p><p> </p><p>No, instead he returned the odd look she was giving him as she watched the molten gold from before move inside of his eyes, a glint appearing to mirror the sunlight shining directly upon him. He looked otherworldly; innocent yet old at the same time, as if those eyes had seen much more than he accounted for. But it was not the haunted boy that stared back at her. This person… this person was honest, as if he too was unable to keep his walls up while walking through this garden. How much trust had he thrown blindly at her, letting her come here so soon? How vulnerable was he right now, this man who’d shown her nothing but warmth and kindness?</p><p> </p><p>Instead of focusing on the molten gold, at the angelic aura radiating off him, or at the intensity of his gaze on hers, she found herself overwhelmed by the small voice ringing inside of her head that had been implanted by her mentor; her sixth sense, he’d called it while barking out orders at her for the millionth time during their <em>Protection against brainwash </em>course. At that moment, she suddenly remembered both that Baekbeom was not the tattooed assassin nor a completely innocent gardener. Those eyes had <em>seen </em>things; those hands had <em>done </em>things.</p><p> </p><p><em>Where is commander Jongdae? </em>The voice buzzed. <em>You need to stop being distracted and find him ASAP! Focus on the mission!!</em><br/><br/></p><p>Aeri blinked and sucked in a harsh breath, turning her face from Baekbeom’s abruptly, shivering from the wind. <em>She needed to run away from this place</em>. It was confusing her; this man, who did not fit into any of the textbook categories - and Soo was the only other person with that description - confused her and proved that her axioms were not all unconditionally correct. She did not want any of this - not the tenderness, the lullabies, the garden walks nor the kindness. Having to constantly look over her back from fear of encountering Kris The World’s Biggest Sadist was bad enough.</p><p> </p><p>She did <em>not </em>want to find out the solution of this puzzle; all she wanted was to go home and watch Soo make something explode and Jongdae give her another one of his speeches. For all she knew, he wasn't even alive, so who was she trying to fool with these stupid flowers and gardens and mock hospitality?</p><p> </p><p><em>She was going to make this place burn</em>. It was the only way, she knew - that was what her clan wanted anyway, and jobs like these were best done from the inside. She would bide her time, get stronger, find weak spots and then turn the place over before making her dramatic exit. And although the vulnerable little girl who’d smelled the blue rose a minute ago and found herself entranced by molten gold in a haunted boy’s eyes wanted nothing more than to stay in this garden forever, she was going to push Baekbeom’s buttons and use him to her advantage. And when the time to pay them all back came, she’d show mercy and not kill him or his brother. It would be the most she could do for them, regardless of how awful of a person it would make her.</p><p> </p><p>Her wounds still hurt, but she knew that before long, she would grow stronger. She was also certain that nothing - except maybe a couple ribs - was broken beyond repair and that the stitches would hold and help her heal - if she didn’t get jumped by Kris again, that was.</p><p>
  
</p><p><em>Where is my commander? s</em>he wanted to ask Baekbeom. <em>Is he alive? Can you take me to him?</em></p><p> </p><p>“Where is your brother?” she asked instead. “Isn’t he supposed to be interrogating me, brainwashing me into compliance or something?” She nearly snorted, remembering the awful feelings she’d experienced when he’d recoiled from her. None of it mattered. She was here on a mission, and if some of them didn’t play along, she’d make it work like that, but she <em>would </em>make it work. All she needed was some time to analyze everything, which is what she usually did anyway. The only difference this time would be that the asset she would be trying attain was her freedom instead of some super-important painting.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh,” Baek said slowly, in a voice that sounded surprised and even <em>disappointed</em>. “Well, he’s working. And he’s not going to <em>brainwash </em>you. He’s actually a pretty reasonable person, maybe you should give him a chance.”</p><p> </p><p>She turned back to him with a raised eyebrow. He was biting his lip and fidgeting with his hands, almost reminding her of Soo. “Look, kid, I hate to break it to you, but we don’t earn our living by selling flowers. Your brother might not act ruthless towards you, but <em>trust me</em>, there’s a lot more to him than what’s on the surface.”</p><p> </p><p>Aeri remembered their first encounter, the way he’d acted like a killing machine and barked questions at her. For a moment, she let herself wonder what would’ve happened if she hadn’t managed to strike him with the taser. Would she have ended up at this very compound? Or would he have just gotten rid of her on the spot, not wanting to risk her breaking away or laying her trap for Kris?</p><p> </p><p>“He’d…” Baekbeom’s soft voice brought her out of her thoughts. While she was pondering whether her brother was a serial killer or not, he’d brought himself to a kneel in front of the roses and was now tending to the soil, plucking stray grass and smoothing the ground. His fingers were bleeding from getting caught up in the thorns, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. “He’d been through a lot, you know. And he’d done it all to protect me. He thinks I don’t know, but I do - I’ve seen and heard all kinds of rumors through the years.”</p><p> </p><p>She decided to take a step forward, gently touching the petals of a nearby rose while he worked. “He pays off the debt for both of you, doesn’t he? Does twice as much work so that you can sit here all day and work in your garden and build a fake protective bubble.” She didn’t mean to sound bitter, but she <em>did</em>. She’d been on Baekhyun’s side of the story for too long without being given a pat on the back, she was <em>sick </em>of having debts and never being able to go back to square one and be free.</p><p> </p><p>Baekbeom looked up from the ground and smiled at her. “Not exactly, no. I have my ways of being useful, too.”</p><p> </p><p>She wondered what that meant, but Baek apparently decided he’d had enough of slicing up his hands and stood up, dusting his hands off on his pants. The smile didn’t leave his face, and she felt as if she’d been outsmarted somehow by his lack of anger at her obviously awfully misplaced and disrespectful words. “Time’s up,” he said in a small voice. “Let me just grab the wheelchair quickly so that I can bring you back the way we came.”</p><p> </p><p>Aeri was not stupid. Yes, she had lost her touch for a second there, but she told herself it was because she’d been in shock over the darkness and the monstrosity of the man who’d been assigned to torture the necessary information out of her. She shouldn’t have let Baekhyun hold her or let him see her crumble down and cry. She shouldn’t have let Baekbeom hold her either or talk with him as if they were friends. She shouldn’t have for a moment felt thankful or as if she should now cling onto them and depend on them.</p><p> </p><p>So after putting on the blindfold, she focused on her surroundings. On trying to memorize Baekbeom’s path through the garden, the number of steps he took, the moment the wheelchair hit concrete floor, the sound of the touchpad of the electric keylock booting, the four beeps after he inserted the necessary code. She counted his steps through the compound, memorized the turns and how many beeps the elevator made before it reached the floor where the infirmary was located. <em>The infirmary was on the fourth floor</em>.</p><p> </p><p>When she was back in the familiar room, there was a meal waiting on the table. From the doorway, the Chinese fashion model said “Nihao!” and waved at her with a creepy smile on his face. She smiled the most genuine smile she could muster at him and even waved at him.</p><p> </p><p>“Making friends?” Baekbeom questioned as he brought the plate with food to the bed. She nodded, not letting the mask waver for a second.</p><p> </p><p><em>She would make this place burn</em>.</p><p> </p><p>And if they’d done something to Jongdae…</p><p> </p><p>She’d burn it down to the ground, and she wouldn’t care for a second if she was in it when it happened or not.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Join me on tumblr: http://hayan-sonyeo.tumblr.com/</p></blockquote></div></div>
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